


Rekindle

by MalisonQuill



Series: Rex Brickowski AU [2]
Category: The LEGO Batman Movie (2017), The LEGO Movie (2014), The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
Genre: Angst, But nothing too bad! I'd say the equivalent of a PG or 12 rating at most. Nothing graphic!, Drogerphobia, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Humor, PTSD involving clothes dryers, Rex is both a badass and an adorable dork at times, Slow Burn, Some chapters are illustrated, Swearing, Violence, anthropomorphic Lego people, but they hecking get there!!, mostly pre-written story so you're not gonna be left hanging!, so on that note there's no lewd stuff either! (Maybe some making out later on tho ;3 you never know), this is a Teen rated story after all!, updates regularly, whether they still have Lego-like heads or are fully human is up to your interpretation, which is apparently, who knew that specifically had a name huh?, you get major extremes of all three of those throughout
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2020-09-24 00:43:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 90,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20349535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalisonQuill/pseuds/MalisonQuill
Summary: Rex Brickowski is now happily living in the Syspocalypstar of his original timeline. He's hanging out with his friends and learning to trust them again, and growing closer and closer to them all with each passing day.Out of them all, Lucy is definitely the one he's closest to. They're good friends again and they're even roommates, living together in their cute little yellow house. But they used to be so much more... Could they both be hiding their old feelings deep down? Could they ever be more than just friends? Do they really have it in them to rekindle their old love once more?They're both cautious, and very hesitant, but they each know what life is like without the other. And neither are willing to lose the other ever again...





	1. In His Arms

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am again guys!!! Back on the Rex Brickowski feels train, and it has no signs of stopping anytime soon!
> 
> I've been working non-stop for the past month or so since Rebuild finished, and I've got a huge chunk of this one pre-written too! Like, 17 out of about 30 chapters are fully complete now (and that alone is 61k words!!!) plus there's some later chapters I've got bits of drafted too. By posting what I've got a few times a week, I should be able to keep up this release schedule as I continue to write the remaining chapters. If I do start to run out of buffer chapters, I might have to cut it down to just once a week. But for the foreseeable future, you're gonna get 3 chapters a week! :3c Every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 3pm (BST) which is my local time.
> 
> Some chapters will be shorter/ longer than others. Going into this, I thought "Oh, most of these will be like, loosely related one-shots. So they should only be 1000-2000 words each! Maybe a few will be longer, like 4000 words maybe." 
> 
> But I was an utter fool. These aren't "loosely connected one-shots" anymore. This thing has turned into a full story, with foreshadowing, call backs, character arcs, plot points, etc. And most chapters are at least 3500 words, with some big ones coming in at about 8000 words!!! 3: So yeah... things got a bit out of hand in the best possible way! xD 
> 
> Special thanks to Piece-of-resistance (both here and on Tumblr) for Beta reading this all for me :3 Please go give her some love!!!! <3 She's absolutely amazing!!!
> 
> Anyway! I've rambled long enough! So please enjoy the start of this wonderful journey full of feels for Rex and Lucy, and all their friends! This thing is gonna be one hell of a roller-coaster, so hold on tight!!! >:3

Rex quietly made his way through the living room on his way to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. As it was the middle of the night, he expected to be the only one awake. And whilst that was technically true, he was still surprised to see Lucy on the couch fast asleep.

She was sat upright. Her head lolled to the side as her quiet, even breathing was the only sound in the room. The TV must have turned itself off at some point after she'd fallen asleep. That was odd for her though, she was usually quite the night owl and had no trouble staying up late. She must have been more tired than either of them had realised. 

But now Rex was stuck with a decision: should he leave her there, wake her up, or take her to bed? 

He thought about it and decided to spare her from a bad back in the morning, hopefully without waking her up in the process. 

Quietly he stepped over to her. Slowly and carefully, he put his left arm under her legs and moved his right behind her back. Steadily he lifted her up, keeping a close watch to see if she would stir. It seemed he was in luck however, as she stayed sound asleep in his arms. He smiled at her as he righted himself, pulling her closer to his chest (only because she'd be more secure that way of course!) 

He took great care with each step he made through their darkened house, being as slow as possible to both not disturb her and make sure he wouldn't trip over anything. (The fact that it meant he could keep hold of her for longer definitely didn't contribute to that decision in any way at all.) She was somewhat lighter than he remembered too. Yes, he had worked out a fair bit in the years since he'd last seen her, but he'd always been a pretty strong guy. It was kind of needed in order to haul around heavy bricks as a construction worker after all. 

He eventually reached her door, which was thankfully ajar, and he pushed it open all the way with his foot. 

At the side of her bed he leaned forward slightly, about to gently put her down, when she stirred in her sleep. A frown deepened on her face as she muttered some nonsense. She rolled slightly in his arms to lean towards him, grabbing a handful of his dinosaur pajama shirt as she nuzzled her head into his shoulder. Rex blushed bright red and was thankful that no one else was around to see him or this whole situation he'd somehow gotten himself into. What started out as a simple kind act had turned into way more feelings than he thought he would have to deal with at 2am in the morning. 'Begrudgingly' he straightened up and drew her closer again. Just until he figured out what to do anyway. 

He slowly sat down on her bed as he waited for her to settle again and let go of him. It took a few minutes, but eventually she relaxed and he was able to gently but quickly put her down next to him. He eased his arms out from under her, before finally just sitting back and staring at her. 

She looked so peaceful, so serene, so… beautiful. It warmed his heart to see her so content. It reminded him why he'd fallen in love with her in the first place, all those years ago. Just seeing her face for the first time had left him speechless, frozen literally mid sentence until she'd turned to search the construction site for the piece of resistance. Back then (and for a long time after) just seeing a tiny smile on her face would send him beaming ear to ear. His outward reaction had lessened significantly since coming back to his timeline, but no matter how much he tried to bury or cover up his emotions, he couldn't help but feel that same brilliant spark of joy at her smile. 

He wouldn't admit it to anyone else (at least, not yet) but sitting there across from her, seeing her sleeping smile, he couldn't deny to himself that he still loved her. 

When the world had crashed and burned around them it hadn't mattered to him, because he'd still had her. Now he was lucky enough to have her again. And maybe, just maybe, they could be as close as they once were again. Because the refound trust he had for his friends, for  _ her _ , grew stronger every day, and maybe some day soon he'd have enough in his heart to rekindle what they'd once had and more.

Rex left her room with a wide smile on his face that stretched from ear to ear. Quietly he closed her door and headed back to his own room, his drink long since forgotten, and soon he found himself soundly asleep as he dreamt of the future and all the possibilities it held.

  
  


\-----

  
  


When Lucy awoke, she was comfortably sprawled out in the middle of her big, soft bed. She stretched and yawned as the sunlight peeked through her curtains and helped her slowly adjust to the mid morning light. She sat up in her bed, rubbing her eyes, before glancing at the clock on her bedside table. It was currently 11:23am. A perfectly reasonable time to get up.

Rex was probably up by now too. He'd seemed to quite easily fall back into the early routine of a morning person. Though he'd yet to get used to cooking anything decent again. Apparently most of his diet in space had consisted of futuristic powdered rations, salads, protein shakes, and whatever other instant meals he could find. She'd better get to the kitchen soon and make sure he hadn't tried anything too adventurous…

She was just about to pull the covers off from her, when she realised she'd been sleeping above them. That was weird. It wasn't particularly hot enough for her to have done that. And other than a few wrinkles, her bed looked the same as when she'd made it up yesterday. 

Wait a minute…

She didn't remember going to bad last night. She remembered watching a movie in the living room… And then… Nothing. Had she fallen asleep on the couch?

That can't have been right. If that had happened, then how had she ended up in her room? But as she looked down, she realised she wasn't in her pj's either. So she hadn't gone to bed herself. But what else could have happened?

The only other way she could have ended up in her bed, was if Rex had brought her here. Would he really have done that? 

Well, she supposed he must have. It was kind of a surprise. A very nice one though. She felt well rested and awake. A lot more than she would have stuck at an awkward angle on the couch. 

It was really sweet that Rex had thought to do that for her. 

He still seemed to have some of that old sweetness he used to have, deep down. She wondered what other aspects of himself he still had. What other feelings he may or may not have… 

Back during the apocalypse they had been 'Super Special Best Friends'. They had been so close. They'd even loved each other. She remembered the first time Emmet had said 'I love you' to her. She'd had a near miss dodging an attack from a Systarian invader and ended up with a pretty nasty cut on her shoulder. He'd been so worried, but so doting on her. The sweet, scared look in his eyes as he'd said it warmed her heart. He'd cared so deeply and so genuinely for her. She'd been his whole world, the most special person in his life.

And he had been hers.

The first time she'd said 'I love you' to him was in a far less tense moment. It had taken her a while to say it, but one evening when they were sat atop an old wrecked building, there was a gorgeous golden sunset that had made his eyes sparkle and made him glow with happiness. It was a simple moment. A quiet peace that was so rare back then. But it had made her realise just how much she'd cared for him, and how simply wonderful he really was. He was talented, and amazing, and unique, and the most important person she'd ever had in her life. He was  _ her special. _

Looking back, she wished she'd said those three little words sooner. She'd had comparatively so little time with him after that… 

She wondered if he would ever say  _ 'I love you' _ to her again?

Sure, he'd said it plenty of times before. But that had been  _ before. _ So, so much had happened to them, happened to  _ him _ since then. He'd been lost, and broken and rebuilt again. He'd changed to be someone else, and then he'd started changing again. Even now he was still learning who he was, how he fit into everything and how he could deal with and move forward from all he'd been through. She hadn't been able to save him. He'd been so mad about that. That anger had fuelled and twisted him. What if he still had some of it left? Could he ever truly forgive her? Would that stop any chance they had to be as close as they once were again?

…

No. 

No, if that were true, he wouldn't have wanted to live with her. He wouldn't have been so happy when she'd said yes to the idea, that he'd picked her up and laughed with joy. He wouldn't have held her hand so many times of his own volition, or brought her her favourite coffee just to make her smile. And most importantly, he wouldn't have kindly brought her to her bed so carefully and considerately, that she hadn't even woken up. 

If he didn't care, if he didn't still feel at least a  _ tiny _ amount of love for her, then he wouldn't have done any of that. Despite everything that had happened, despite how much he and everything had changed, she had  _ hope. _

And despite it all, she still loved him.

Maybe the two of them did still have a chance to rekindle their old love once again. 

  
  
  


At that moment, the fire alarm started blaring loudly throughout the house, and she heard Rex yelling from the kitchen.

"HOW THE HELL DOES  ** _CEREAL_ ** CATCH FIRE?!?!"

She chuckled and quickly headed towards the kitchen. Same old Rex, always full of surprises.


	2. Braided Together

Lucy had opened the front door and walked into the living room to a very unexpected sight. 

“You braided his hair?” She blurted out. 

Rex was sat cross-legged on a pillow on the floor with Unikitty sat behind him. He whipped around to look at her, his cheeks quickly turning a deeper shade of red by the second. 

“Uh- Lucy! We -uh-” 

Lucy covered her mouth with her hands, poorly stifling her growing laughter. Unikitty just smiled and carried on plaiting the small section she’d been working on before they’d been interrupted. 

“We were bored and I said to Rex ‘ _ hey, you know your hair is longer than it used to be. Can I braid it? _ ’ And then he said, ‘ _ Yeah sure, why not? _ ’ and so I did!” Unikitty said as she finished her current braid, and started on yet another on the side of his head. Rex’s face was now redder than a tomato and he found it hard to meet Lucy’s eyes. 

“Well I think you look really pretty Rex.” Lucy giggled. 

Rex grew a goofy grin on his face and laughed. Except it wasn’t because he was embarrassed, rather it was that her compliment made him feel weirdly fuzzy inside. 

“Uh, thanks.” 

She came over and sat next to him and Unkitty on the floor. 

“Mind if I join in?” 

“Sure!” Unikitty said, whilst Rex was too flabbergasted to object.

Lucy started plaiting the hair on the front of his head. She separated three locks of his hair, one his natural brown, and the other two his dyed strands of orange and blue. She braided them together and pulled the end round the side of his head, using a hair clip to pin it in place. He would not say it out loud, but getting such close one-on-one attention from her gave him such a strong, warm, happy feeling in his heart. One that he remembered he used to feel nearly every time he saw her years ago.

They continued on until practically every part of his hair that could be plaited was. Rex looked fairly silly with a dozen short plaits on his head, but he found he didn't mind that much. He got to chat and laugh about it with his friends and that was all that mattered. 

“You know, I think this is a good look for you Rex!” Unikitty said. 

“Yeah, definitely!” Lucy snorted in between bouts of giggles. 

Rex looked at her and smirked mischievously. 

“Oh yeah? Well I'm glad you think so Luce. Cause it's  _ your turn  _ next.”

She stopped giggling abruptly. 

“Wait, what?” 

“Yup. It's only fair. Isn't that right Unikitty?” 

She nodded at him enthusiastically. 

“That's right! It's only fair if we all have our hair braided! Those are the rules Wyldstyle!”

Now it was her turn to go bright red. She tried to think of a way out of it, but Unikitty’s bright smile and Rex’s smirk had her cornered. So, she begrudgingly resigned to her fate. 

“Oh all right. But I'm taking pictures when this is done as payment.” 

Rex chuckled as he looked at the pout on her face. 

“You got a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter was a little short, but they all get a lot longer and more plot orientated after this! :3
> 
> Hope you enjoy this silly drawing I did too x3
> 
> Also about Saturday... Prepare yourselves for feels >:D


	3. Rex's Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Please don't be too mad at me 3:

Rex ran up a long case of bright pink and white-coloured stairs. There were people shouting behind him, a vast crowd watching his every move. He smiled devilishly as he neared the top. His hands were balled tightly into fists. Familiar voices that he couldn’t bring himself to care about cried for him to stop, but he carried on. He was so close. His goal was in reach. Just one master-breaker punch and he’d successfully bring about Armamageddon. 

He passed Batman and Queen Watevra. The top of the wedding cake was  _ right there _ . He crouched, then sprung up high into the air, pulling back his fist, ready to strike… 

But he didn’t land where he intended. Instead, something large slammed into his side. He snarled at what it was, and saw it was Lucy, who scowled back at him. They landed with a thud on a lower layer of the cake. Rex used the momentum to roll out of Lucy’s grasp. Both of them quickly recovered and were poised to fight. But as Rex looked around, he realised she wasn’t alone. All of his friends (or should he say  _ former friends _ ) surrounded him, and they all shared the exact same rage filled scowl. 

Well so what? He could take them! And he could match their rage tenfold too! They’d betrayed him all those years ago and here they stood against him, betraying him again, showing they never  _ were  _ and never  _ would be _ on his side. 

He lunged at Metalbeard, gabbing his piano shin and tearing it from his leg. He span around in a circle, smashing the piano into Metalbeard’s other leg and toppling him over. Unikitty charged at him, her pink fur threatening to burn red with rage at any second. He roughly threw the piano and smashed it right into Unikitty’s face, dazzling her and causing her to stumble backwards and fall onto a lower level. 

He felt a gust of wind blow through his hair as he heard a tell-tale flap of fabric behind him. In a single move he ducked down low and spun on the spot, successfully dodging a dull batarang to the head and throwing Batman off kilter. He used the distraction to grab Batman’s cape from between his legs and pull it forward, making Batman fall right on his butt. Using the cape, he tangled it around Batman’s arms and legs, effectively immobilising him. He gave him a quick stomp on his gut for extra measure, ensuring he’d be winded and out of the fight for a while. 

He dashed forward again. Next up was Benny. He ran at the spaceman with a raised fist, ready to aim right for his chest. But just as he made to swing, the spaceman used his gravity defying abilities to float to the side and out the way just in the nick of time. Benny raised his robotic right hand and smacked Rex on the back of his head. Rex stumbled forward a few paces, but gritted his teeth and whipped back around to face Benny. The anger in his face made the spaceman freeze for a moment, but that moment was all Rex needed. 

He grabbed the upper part of Benny’s robot arm with one hand, and with the other pushed against Benny’s chest. With a sickening crunch the metal gave way under his grasp, weakening it enough for him to twist and pull the prosthetic right off. All Benny could do was stare at him in horror as Rex discarded the metal arm behind him with an uncaring toss. He advanced on Benny slowly, grinding his teeth in rage as the cold look in his eyes darkened. He grabbed a fistfull of Benny’s spacesuit, pulling back his fist to strike, ready to widen that  _ stupid  _ crack on his  _ stupid  _ helmet. When all of a sudden he felt something clamp around his wrist and pull it back. 

His right arm was harshly twisted behind his back, and before he could even react, he felt something grab his other arm and pull it back too. Another part of the thing clamped down on his left wrist, keeping both his arms locked a waist width apart. He struggled, trying to pull the restraints apart but it didn’t work. He then thrashed his legs backwards, trying to kick whatever was behind him. He turned his head and saw a flash of black, blue and pink before he was kicked in the back of his knees and forced forward to the ground. In a flash his legs were cuffed and restrained, forcing him to stay in a kneeling position. He kept trying in vain to free himself, thrashing his head and torso around with all the strength he could muster. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone was right behind him. He thrust his head backwards, trying to headbutt them in a desperate attempt to stay in the fight. But it was no use. The device was slipped around his throat and jawline, locking his head facing forward. From what little he could see, it looked like someone had reconstructed Benny’s arm into a make-shift restraint to stop him from moving. 

_ “Smart.” _ He thought.

But he could break free of it. He was certain of it. He pulled as hard as he could and thrashed as much as possible in what little wiggle room he was left with. But the more he moved, the tighter the restraints felt. The cuffs dug into his wrists and legs, the connecting rods shortened and pulled his arms further back, the part around his neck felt so constricting that he could barely breathe. But he kept trying. He yelled. He screamed. He fought on. 

But it was no use. He’d been caught. 

He was  _ trapped _ . 

Lucy, Benny and the others gathered around him, their faces solum. 

When Rex finally began to slow down he noticed them. They were the only things surrounding him now, the crowd and everywhere beyond the cake was gone to him. Tears threatened to fall out of the corners of his eyes but he was too angry to let that happen. 

“HOW DARE YOU!” He shouted.

“ _ HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!?”  _

Lucy stepped in front of him. There was an other-worldly darkness about her, an unusually cold look in her eyes.

“How could  _ you _ do this to  _ us  _ ** _Emmet?_ ** ” She asked. 

He was taken aback by that. That name freezing his thoughts for a brief moment, before he could collect himself again.

“You  ** _betrayed me._ ** You  ** _left me behind!_ ** ”

“And that makes it right to destroy everything in existence? If you really believe that, then we were  _ right  _ to leave you behind.”

A dark shadow fell over Lucy’s eyes as she said that. He looked around to the others, they all had the same thing; deep disproving scowls with darkness hiding their eyes. They all began to swirl around him, swarming him like vultures as a growing spinning sensation made him feel sick. He closed his eyes, hoping it would stop, but his  _ ‘friends’  _ just laughed at him. An ethereal echoing sound that reverberated in his head.

“ _ You  _ ** _actually _ ** _ thought we liked you? _ ” Unikitty snarled in his ear.

“ _ Why would we ever come find you? You’re  _ ** _worthless!_ ** ” Benny laughed.

“ _ You finally make an effort to toughen up and what do you do? You try to destroy us all! Luckily you’re too much of a  _ ** _failure_ ** _ to even do that right! _ ” Batman chuckled. 

“ _ Oh please. You actually believe his tough guy persona?”  _ Lucy sneered as she mockingly patted his cheek. 

_ “It’s pathetic! He’s just as much of a worthless, naive, weak, baby as he ever was and he  _ ** _knows_ ** _ it. _ ” 

Rex couldn’t take it anymore. Tears fell down his face as he struggled, trying to turn his head away. 

“STOP IT! STOP SAYING THAT!” 

Lucy grabbed his chin and forced him to look her in the face. 

_ “Oooh! Look at that! The little baby’s crying! See, I told you I was right!” _

Metalbeard loomed over him, gesturing with his cannon arm. 

_ “Can’t  _ ** _save _ ** _ his friends. Can’t  _ ** _destroy _ ** _ his friends. He can’t do  _ ** _anything!_ ** _ ” _

Lucy smirked devilishly at Rex. 

_ “ _ ** _I _ ** _ know the perfect place for people who can’t do anything!”  _

Rex gasped as he realised where she was talking about. Tears fell faster down his face as his voice cracked with sorrow. 

“No…  _ No, please _ .  _ Not  _ ** _there_ ** _ . You  _ ** _can’t!_ ** ”

Her smile grew wider and darker than he ever thought possible. 

_ “And why not?  _ ** _It’s where you belong Emmet!_ ** _ It’s where you  _ ** _deserve _ ** _ to be.” _

Panic rose in him with each passing second. Lucy wouldn’t really do this, would she?

“PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T! I’M _SORRY! I shouldn’t have tried to cause Armamageddon._ **_I’M SORRY!_**”

She sneered at him apathetically.

_ “Pleading won’t do you any good. You don’t deserve to be forgiven. You deserve to be  _ ** _forgotten._ ** _ We don’t need you Emmet. We can be happy without you, and you’ve seen it. You know it’s true. So why don’t you just go back to where you belong.” _

Terror took hold of him, he tried to struggle free, to do anything to stop what was coming but he couldn’t. Lucy stepped forward, rose one leg, and kicked him hard, square in his chest. He fell backwards, gravity lurching his stomach. Looking up, all he could see was Lucy getting smaller and smaller as he fell further away. Her cold, dead eyes bore deep into his soul. She had no remorse, not an ounce of care for him at all. 

It wasn’t a hard thud that he hit the ground with, but rather a soft ‘clack’ sound. He slid backwards on a smooth surface until his momentum finally stopped. He could still see the wedding cake in the distance, silhouettes of his friends standing there staring at him. But above and around him he saw a sight so familiar yet so terrible that he finally lost the last tiny shred of courage left inside him. 

He was on Undar of the Dryar system. 

And he couldn’t move. The restraints kept him locked in place. He couldn’t stand, couldn’t move his arms, hell, he couldn’t even turn his head. He was trapped on Undar, but this time was so,  _ so, much worse _ . His limited movement on Undar coupled with the fact he was restrained meant he had no chance of moving and escaping on his own like he had last time. His only hope was his friends. They knew he was here, but they had  _ sent  _ him here, they weren’t going to save him. Not after what he’d done. So here he was, paralysed and forced to watch his friends go on with their lives without him… forever. 

He didn’t bother holding back his sobs anymore. He didn’t care about his dignity, about looking tough. All he wanted was for this all to stop. Despite knowing it would be pointless, his heart couldn’t help but cry out for his friends.

“Lucy!  _ Lucy please! _ I’m sorry! I’M SORRY! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE AGAIN!  _ SAVE ME! _ ”

But Lucy would not save him. Neither would any of his other friends. A quiet hum grew louder as the giant wedding cake and all his friends faded into the dark oblivion. His heart shattered.

“ _ LUCY! _ LUCY NO! DON’T GO! PLEASE!  _ PLEASE HELP ME! _ ”

The hum of Undar turned into a thunderous, deafening roar. A noise so loud it reverberated through his body, rattling him to his core and drowning out his desperate cries.

“ _ HELP ME LUCY!  _ ** _PLEASE! WHY WON’T YOU HELP ME?! L U C Y ! ! !_ ** _ ” _

  
  
  


Suddenly, a voice rose above everything. Freezing, then evaporating the world around him. 

  
  
  


“REX! REX WHAT’S WRONG!?”

He blinked rapidly. A bright light blinded him. A gentle hand rested on his shoulder. When his eyes adjusted to the light he saw the concerned face of Lucy looking expectantly at him. He tried to move his hand so he could reach out to her, but with rising horror he realised it was pinned to his side. He struggled again, his sleep clouded brain dulling all his logical thinking. 

“Rex! It’s ok!”

Lucy quickly grabbed Rex’s quilt that had gotten badly tangled around him and tugged it free. He squirmed away from it, panting on the brink of hyperventilation with panic. Lucy approached him slowly and calmly, gently resting a hand against his cheek. 

“It was just your quilt Rex. It’s ok. You’re alright.” 

His breathing slowed slightly, but his heart was still beating at a mile a minute. Slowly the fog lifted and he took in his surroundings. He was in his own bedroom. In his house that he shared with Lucy. He was on the floor next to his bed and had been tangled up in his duvet. Which meant that he had had a nightmare. 

“I heard you shouting in your sleep from my room... I’m guessing you had a nightmare?”

He nodded slowly.

“It… It was a bad one. I’ve not had one that bad or that real for a long time…”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Rex’s eyes darted around before meeting hers. He debated it for a moment. The lingering moments of his nightmare still ingrained in his mind. The Lucy in his nightmare had been so cruel… Could he really trust her in the waking world? Did he even want her to know what he’d imagined? He thought about saying no, but there was a particular look in her eyes, one of genuine concern, care and worry for him. The hand that rested against his cheek was warm and gentle. The nightmare version of her had purposely abandoned him, but  _ this  _ one, the  _ real Lucy _ had saved him. She was real and kind and here for him and that was all that mattered. 

“...Yeah.” 

She smiled sweetly and moved her hand to hold his and help him up. His heart, which had calmed down a fair bit by now, fluttered faster for a moment. Her reassuring smile was infectious, and despite everything he couldn’t help but mirror it himself. Even after all this time he was still a big sap at heart. 

“C’mon, lets go get some hot chocolate while we talk.”

  
  


They walked hand-in-hand to the kitchen, parting once they got there so Lucy could prep the coco and Rex could sit down and wait in the breakfast nook. He’d only had nightmares twice since he had returned to his original timeline and he and Lucy had properly moved back in together. Both of those times she’d ended up comforting him until he calmed down enough for them to go back to sleep in their separate rooms. He’d missed living with her. Missed the simple pleasure of her company in all those years without her. But it might be a while before he was ready to be anything like  _ ‘super special best friends’ _ with her again. The nightmare he just had was proof enough that he still had some underlying trust issues to work through. Still, he really did care about her. She was a very good friend to him. Probably better than he deserved. 

He watched quietly and figited as she walked around the kitchen. He hoped she’d be done soon, so they could sit together and relax. Right now, just being sat across the room from her was making him agitated again. Making him feel like he was alone. 

He hated feeling so clingy. Half the time it seemed he yo-yoed between never wanting to spend a single moment alone from his friends and wanting to be alone so they couldn’t betray his trust again. He really hated being alone though. Having that fear that his friends would never come back again. Logically he knew they would (probably) never leave him again, not like they had the last time it happened, anyway. He wanted so badly to trust them and be as close to them now as he was as Emmet. But a small part of him always fought back, nagged at him in the back of his mind, telling him they’d left him before and they could do so again. He tried to ignore that voice, but it could be so loud at times. 

  
  


A dark blue mug with a bright green, smiling, skateboarding T-Rex that said  _ 'Rex-cellent' _ on it was set down in front of him. The scent of fresh, steaming chocolate wafted towards him. He picked up the mug and smiled at Lucy as he stood up. They both wandered into the lounge and sat next to each other on the bottom layer of their double decker couch. 

After a few sips of coco Rex slowly told Lucy about his nightmare. He told her how, in retrospect, he was confused that he was trying to destroy the wedding ceremony. It had been the other Emmet trying to do that, not him. And besides, he didn’t even want to cause Armamageddon anymore! Why would he want to do it in his dream? Did it mean a part of him still wanted to?

Lucy assured him that it probably just happened because he had planned to do it for a long time, so it was something that could easily be hanging around in his subconscious, even if consciously he had no desire to do it anymore. That was true, and it certainly made sense. At least he felt better about one aspect of his nightmare. 

But then there were bigger issues they had to tackle. The twisted versions of his friends that had tormented him, the devilish device that had entrapped him, and the harsh way he’d been purposely abandoned. 

He felt somewhat ashamed at telling her about it all. He knew, looking at it with a clear mind, that they wouldn’t do that to him, and that they had never actually done that to him at all. But a construction of his subconscious mind was the perfect place for all his irrational fears and anxieties to become real. He knew all that now, and he told it to himself in his head, but for some reason hearing it come from Lucy and having her assure him and confirm these things, just made him feel more sure that it was true. 

They’d emptied their mugs long ago by the time he’d finished talking. He felt a lot better after talking with her, and a large part of that had to do with the fact that it assured him how nice and supportive the real Lucy was. But even so, he couldn’t face going back to bed alone. He didn’t want to deal with another nightmare tonight. So instead, he casually asked if they could watch something together. Despite how late it had gotten, she agreed. 

He chose Back to the Future: Part 3, as it had the least threat of time duplicates dying in it, and because he loved the western theme of it. He was only half paying attention to it though, as his eyes felt heavy and he threatened to nod off about 15 minutes in. Lucy couldn’t help but chuckle quietly as she watched his head droop and snap up again every minute or so. She thought about asking him if he wanted to go back to bed, but decided not to. If he was this tired but wanted to watch something anyway, then it was obvious to her that what he actually needed was company. And she didn’t mind. It was nice to spend time with Rex, especially in moments like this. She remembered once asking Emmet to stay up past his usual bedtime to finish watching a show with her. Poor guy hadn’t even made it to the first ad-break before he dozed off. It was nice to see reminders of who he had been were still in him. Rex may have still tried to be more tough than sweet, but it seemed some of his ‘Emmet-isms’ hadn’t totally gone. Rex was so different to the man she used to know, and as much as she regretted ever asking Emmet to change who he was, she couldn’t help warming up to Rex and caring about him just as much as she had before. 

About 30 minutes in Rex’s eyes closed, and his head drooped, and it didn’t snap up again. His breathing slowed to a steady pace as he fell deeper into sleep. Slowly, he started to slide towards her, no longer able to keep himself up right, until his head finally stopped and rested on her shoulder. 

Well. 

It looked like she was stuck. She and Rex would be spending the rest of the night sleeping awkwardly on the couch. Rex would most likely have a cricked neck in the morning too. But somehow she was sure that when he woke up, he’d be more rested and content than he had been for a while. And it was with that thought, that she too found her own eyes feeling heavier, as she drifted off to sleep with Rex by her side. Her hand rested over his, and a small smile crept over his face.

And for once, Rex was happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hope that ending makes up for the earlier angst 3:>
> 
> Also I got the idea for the start of Rex's nightmare from this comic by t-ggs96 on tumblr  
https://t-ggs96.tumblr.com/post/183506123444/part-1-part-2-part-3-you-know-maybe-its   
So please go check that out along with all their other awesome art!!! :D Everything they do is great! :3


	4. Working Out

Batman sat on the leg curl machine at the local gym, lifting a large amount of weight with practised ease that many others wouldn't have been able to move an inch. He wore a black and yellow striped tracksuit, sneakers with a Batman logo on them, and of course his ever present cowl. How he could work out so hard and not horribly sweat the thing out was a mystery. 

Rex was sat on a bench near him, slowly lifting a large dumbbell in his right hand. Unlike Batman, he had a much simpler look. He just had his white tank top that he usually had on under his shirt and vest, and his usual orange boots and dark blue trousers. He'd also pulled back as much of his hair as he could into a short ponytail, in an effort to keep his messy locks out the way while he worked out. 

Rex finished his set and stood to go put the dumbbell back on the rack with the others. He stretched and loosened his arms a bit, flexing afterwards to admire his own toned muscles. He was happy to see they were still quite to his liking. He'd been doing a pretty good job keeping them up, even after coming back to this timeline and dedicating a bit less time to working out. 

He glanced at one of the gym's clocks and saw they'd been working on weightlifting for quite a while. So he thought it best they take a break from that and change things up a bit.

"Hey Bats, feel up to helping me do some crunches for a bit?" 

Batman slowly put the weight down as he finished his set. Standing up, he stretched his back and loosened his tensed up joints.

"Sure. You working on that 9-pack or something?"

As the two of them started walking over to the gym's soft mat area, Rex scoffed.

"  _ I wish. _ With all the variety of things Lucy's been cooking, plus having access to takeout food, and the sweet cakes and stuff Unikitty keeps  _ insisting _ on giving me, I'm having a hard enough time keeping the six-pack and waistline I already got!"

He stopped for a second, and partly pulled up his tank top enough to show Batman his still fairly defined abs, tapered waist, and flat looking stomach.

"You see this?" He said, poking into his stomach.

"I'm losing definition! I'm getting all soft again… And I worked  _ hard _ for these chiselled features!"

Batman looked at him incredulously.

"Bro, you look perfectly fine. Half the people here would kill to have a bod like yours!"

Rex frowned as he tucked his top back into his trousers.

"Thanks… But the point is I'm  _ slipping. _ I'm falling back into old habits. And I don't mind doing that with some things, like, liking Everything is Awesome again or something, but not this! If I'm soft on the outside, then I'm soft on the inside! And I can't be that, and be tough at the same time."

Batman put a hand to Rex's shoulder and looked him straight in the eye as he gestured with his free hand.

"Bro. Abs and chiselled features aren't  _ everything. _ And they're not what makes you tough either. Look- You prefer strength exercises over cardio right?"

Rex stared at him, a little confused as to where he was going with this.

"Yeah...?" 

"Well then surely you've seen those 'strongmen' guys? You know, the ones who compete to be the strongest person in the world?"

He scoffed.

"Yeah, of course."

"Well they don't exactly have super defined six-packs and teeny waistlines, do they? But you wouldn't call any of them 'soft'!"

Rex shrugged off Batman's hand as he listened. Crossing his arms, he glanced away.

"I guess."

Batman continued.

"Plus none of those super defined, skinny, six-pack having male models have much actual strength to back that look up. A lot of pictures of them are taken after dehydrating themselves for a few days too, which ain't exactly healthy or useful for putting your muscles to practical use."

Rex thought about that. He'd vaguely remembered hearing something about that in the past, but had paid it no mind at the time.

"That's a good point, I suppose."

Batman smiled at him, glad that he was starting to get through to him in some way.

"You don't have to look exactly like people imagine the 'perfect male body' to be, to be tough or healthy, or happy with how you look. Screw what anyone else thinks! It's better to have a cake and a tiny bit of pudge no one's gonna notice and be happy, than starve and dehydrate yourself and be miserable!"

Rex thought about it all for a moment. He hadn't exactly had a very enjoyable diet in space when he was at his peak of bodybuilding. It had been dull and bland, and there had been so many times he wished he could just have a big tub of chocolate cookie dough ice cream all to himself. But he'd always denied himself. He couldn't risk it turning into a habit. Because then he'd revert back to other old habits, until he was soft and weak again, and he'd have undone all the work towards being tough that he was doing.

And yeah, that had resulted in a pretty fit, chiselled bod. But if he was being honest, it was barely any different to what he had now.

Now that he lived in Syspocalypstar, he had regular access to all kinds of foods. And he couldn't deny how much he enjoyed the variety of Lucy's cooking, or the way stringy cheese from a hot pizza melted in his mouth, or the utter sugary bliss he felt when he bit into one of Unikitty's cupcakes. 

He had made himself forget how good it had all been. He really did love being able to eat more of what he wanted. The problem was, how did he keep from eating  _ too much _ of what he wanted? Where was the middle ground?

  
  


"Look, I get all that. But I'm still worried about slipping too far back, you know?"

Batman chuckled and shook his head.

"Bro,  _ trust me, _ just keep up what you're doing and you'll never have to deal with that, alright?"

There was that word again:  _ trust. _ He'd been doing a lot of that lately. It was certainly getting easier, but it still made him worry and question things when it involved big issues. But then again, Batman had been working out and keeping fit for years as a part of staying good at crime fighting. So he probably knew what he was on about and could make an accurate assessment on Rex's behalf.

"Ok..." Be begrudgingly agreed.

Batman smirked at him.

"Besides. Who needs some superfluous, sculpted six-pack when you have guns like  _ those!" _ He said, pointing directly at Rex's arms for emphasis. Rex looked down at his right arm and flexed it upwards as he admired it.

"Well… I have always had pretty strong arms!"

"I know dude. Just be sure you don't point those guns at anyone, otherwise I might have to tie you up and haul you to Arkahm!"

Rex let his arm down and the two of them laughed together, until a thought suddenly occurred to Rex.

"But wait a minute, what about you and your 9-pack? Wouldn't you have to do all that stuff you were on about?"

"Oh I'm different." Batman said, shrugging. Rex scrunched his face in confusion.

"Why's that?"

Batman was silent for a moment, staring intently at Rex, before he blurted out:

"Because  _ I'm  _ ** _Batman!_ ** _ " _

Rex loudly snorted and sniggered.

" _ Man _ . Walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"Totally."

  
  


They started walking away further into the gym again. They still had a lot of time left before either of them had to be anywhere. So there was plenty more working out for them to do.

"Still feel like helping me do some crunches anyway?"

Batman gave him a smile and a friendly, gentle punch to his arm.

"Sure bro."

  
  


\-----

  
  


Rex laid on his back with his knees bent up in the air, as Batman held onto his feet to keep him from moving. He'd interlaced his fingers and held his hands behind his head as he pulled his torso upwards. He grunted with effort every time he reached the top of his pull up. Beads of sweat ran down his head and his arms, following the contours of his toned muscles. He grunted again as he finished another pull up.

"That's 50. C'mon bro, you got another 20 in you?"

Rex continued, keeping up his steady pace with some effort, but mostly ease.

"As if you even need to ask!" He chuckled.

  
  


As he continued, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Two girls and a guy were eagerly whispering amongst each other and kept glancing over in Rex's direction. When one of the girls noticed Rex looking at them, she blushed and turned away, the other two giggling at her.

"Huh. Wonder what's got them so excited?"

Batman glanced over in the direction Rex was looking at, and immediately took note of the slightly frazzled group as they kept sneaking glances in Rex's direction.

"Dude, they’re totally checking you out right now."

Rex paused between pull ups as he laid on the floor, his surprised tone briefly going higher in pitch. 

"Wait- really???"

"Totes." Batman nodded sagely.

He looked over at the group again and noticed that yeah, they really were checking him out. After staring for a moment, he cleared his throat and continued his crunches.

"Well.  _ *Grunt* _ That's nice of them." He said in his usual gruff tone.

Batman looked at them again, before smirking back at Rex.

"You know I bet if you asked one of them out, they'd say yes."

"Ha ha! Probably would! Who can resist all of  _ this?" _ He said with a self assured grin, as he sat upright and flexed his right arm. Batman looked at him, then at the group, then back at Rex.

  
  


"So, you gonna do it?"

His grin fell, and he got an almost nervous look on his face as he looked away.

"Uh… They seem nice, but no." He said softly as he leant back and resumed his crunches.

"Is it because of Lucy?"

Rex immediately lost his concentration mid pull up and fell back on the floor with a thud.

"I'll take that as a yes" Batman cheekily said, as Rex looked up at him and started blushing slightly.

As ever, Batman got straight to the point.

"So are you and her a thing, or what?"

Rex spluttered, quickly sitting himself up and crossed his legs.

"WHAT? No! What makes you think that?"

Batman nonchalantly shrugged at him.

"I mean, you used to be a thing, you do live together, and you're always holding hands at every opportunity."

Rex subconsciously wrung his hands and interlaced his fingers together, as he glanced away from Batman.

"...Friends can hold hands…"

Batman mockingly nodded, sounding entirely unconvinced as he spoke.

"Uh, huh. And do  _ 'friends' _ blush bright red and stare into each other's eyes whilst doing that?"

Rex looked away at the floor as his face turned even redder.

_ "Maybe…" _

Rolling his eyes, Batman sighed.

"Face it bro. You are in lo-"

"DON'T!- use that word… Not yet anyway..." Rex interrupted. Again, Batman was unfazed. 

"Uh huh. But you totally are though, right?"

Rex silently lifted his knees and hugged them as he thought. Sure, he could say no to Batman, but there was no way he'd believe it. He'd gotten him metaphorically cornered, and the easiest way out was to admit the truth. Still, he did want an extra bit of assurance that Batman had no plans on blabbing to Lucy.

  
  


"You won't tell her?" He asked.

"Nope! And that's a Bat-promise."

Well… He supposed that was as good as he was going to get. So, very quietly, and very softly, he admitted it.

  
  


"... _ yeah. I am…" _

"So why not go for it!? She obviously likes you back!"

Rex looked back at him, quite surprised by just how…  _ enthusiastic _ he seemed to be. 

"I don't know if I'd call it  _ obvious." _

Batman seemed to get rather annoyed at that. Groaning loudly before irritability replying.

"Bro, even a blind old bat could see it!" 

  
  


Rex had to admit, he had a point. Lucy did seem to care for him a lot, and she'd expressed that in a lot of outward actions. But even so, he couldn't be sure she cared about him in the same way he did about her. Not without directly asking her about it. And even if that was the case, what if she wasn't ready to officially be with him again? He'd only been back and started getting to know her again for almost two months now. He wasn't sure that was even enough time for her to recover from the fact he'd come back from the dead, let alone have enough time to be an official couple again.

  
  


"It's just- me and Luce have a good thing going on right now. We're good friends! I don't wanna spoil that after getting her back!"

Batman growled frustratingly and slowly ran a hand down his face.

" _ Urgh! _ Lame!"

Rex glared at him angrily. How dare he think his situation was lame!

_ "Excuse me?" _ He growled.

Batman scoffed at him.

"That's one of the oldest tropes in the book. Two good friends both really, really care about each other and want to take things further, but are too scared to ruin what they already have, so they never make a move. Or they do, and it's too late! Seen it a million times before."

Rex was starting to get a little pissed off with just how far Batman was invading his privacy and comparing  _ his _ relationship with Lucy to some lame chick-flick trope he'd watched.

"Hey! This isn't some dumb,  _ 'Will they? Won't they?' _ fanfic! This is  _ my life _ we're talking about! And I'm not about to throw away my one chance at happiness on a whim, just because you think I should run into things without thinking like I've done before, too many times for my own good! Look where  _ that's _ gotten me…"

Rex rested his head on his crossed arms as he looked away and pouted. Batman accepted defeat and scoffed again.

"Pshh!  _ Fine! _ Whatever. Take it at your own pace. Just don't make her wait forever. Keep an eye out for signs she likes you back and  _ act on them _ . Or one day you'll find yourself looking back and  _ regretting _ it."

There was that word he'd once made into his motto.  _ 'No regrets'...  _ he'd lived by that for quite some time. And for a while, he'd fooled himself into believing it was true. But it wasn't. He did have regrets. A lot actually, now he'd started to think about it and admit to himself that he actually had some. And yeah, that may have been in the past, but he didn't exactly want to add any more onto the pile. 

Batman was right in a way. If he was serious about getting back together with Lucy one day, he'd have to be brave and make a move at some point. Otherwise she could slip through his fingers and be gone for good. But he was determined to never let that happen. 

He just needed a bit more time before he was ready.

  
  


"I'll try to keep that in mind…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We stan one bat-themed vigilante and his body positivity!
> 
> And also the fact the he apparently ships Rex and Lucy as much as we do 😆 I mean, he did love watching movies about relationships in Lego Batman sooooo.... :P


	5. Laundry Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... A chapter involving laundry? In a story about Rex..?
> 
> Well, I wonder how this could possibly turn out? xD

Rex and Lucy were sat next to each other on the living room sofa. He had his feet casually propped up on the table whilst he watched TV. She had a hand bag open on the table and was checking through it to be sure she had everything she needed.

"I've gotta go out to help Unikitty decide on some new wallpaper and furniture for a wing of her castle she's redecorating. Knowing her, it's probably gonna take all day. Would you mind doing some chores while I'm out?"

Rex stopped idly flipping through channels on the TV and looked at her.

"Sure. I can do some tidying up, no sweat."

She smiled at him, as she closed her bag and stood up.

"Great. There's a To-do list on the fridge. I'll be sure to text you when I'm on my way back. See you later alligator!" She said as she started quickly heading towards the front door. 

"In a while crocodile!" He shouted towards her.

The door slammed shut behind her, and a minute or so later he heard her bike start up and drive away. 

He looked back at the TV and scrolled through the program schedule. There wasn't really much catching his fancy at the moment. So he decided he might as well make a start on the chores now before he forgot about them and ended up doing them all at the last minute or something. He turned the TV off and headed to the kitchen. He picked up the to-do list off the fridge and looked at it.

_ To-do _

_ Vacuuming _

_ Washing Up _

_ Throw out bad food _

_ Clean the bathroom _

_ Laundry _

That last one made him pause. But he decided to ignore it for now. There were plenty of other things he could do before he even had to consider doing… _ that. _ Maybe if he was lucky Lucy would be back before he got to it, so he wouldn't have to do it himself.

As he was currently in the kitchen anyway, he decided to make a start there. He shoved the list in one of his vest pockets, before opening up the fridge and taking a look inside. Glancing around inside it, he decided to check the most obvious things first. He picked up the skimmed milk and sloshed it around for a moment. The colour of it didn't quite look right, so he unscrewed the lid and took a sniff. Immediately he gagged and shoved it an arm's length away from him. It smelt absolutely _ rank! _ A quick look at the date on it confirmed it was over its use-by date, by about a week. He promptly poured it all down the sink and threw the tub into the recycling, holding back the bottle cap and putting into a bag with a bunch more that hung on a hook by the back door. Unikitty had asked them to save any bottle caps for some random arts and crafts project she was working on. He didn't really get it, but it wasn't exactly like it was a hard thing for him to do, so he just went with it. If It made his friend happy, then that was enough for him.

Checking the rest of milk, he thankfully found they were still ok. So he started rummaging through the rest of the things in the fridge. He picked up a half eaten tub of hummus that he'd been snacking on with some carrot sticks the other day. It had a number of air bubbles in it, and had a few faint specs of fuzz starting to form. Better chuck it and be safe, rather than sorry. He extended his arm back and held the tub in the air for a moment, before loosening his grip on it. 

He had planned on continuing his rummaging, but was startled out of it by the sound of the tub clattering on the ground. He turned around and saw it had fallen face down and spilled some hummus on the floor. That confused him for a moment. That wasn't supposed to happen. But wait, of course that's what happened, he just let go of the thing! What? Was he expecting someone to just show up out of thin air and take it from him?

Wait, that's exactly what he'd expected. Or at least, that how his body had reflexively reacted. For years on the Rexcelsior he could just hold out whatever he was holding and a nearby raptor would come grab it off him. It was a habit he'd gotten so used to, he hadn't even thought about it after a while. He just kind of did it. 

But he couldn't do that anymore, he didn't have any raptors to grab whatever off of him whenever he wanted. Which is why he guessed nowadays he'd just occasionally drop things instead of taking them where they needed to be himself. He'd stopped doing it so much recently, but as he looked at the mess on the floor, it seemed it was something he was still getting used to.

He stood up and picked up a damp cloth from the sink, then cleaned up the mess he'd made. 

Once that was done, he finished up his check of the fridge and then moved onto doing the dishes. He gathered all the dirty crockery up and popped it into the dishwasher, setting it off to run without him. 

"Ok! What's next?" He said as he pulled out the list again. Grabbing a pen from his pocket, he ticked off the two things he'd already done and decided on doing the vacuuming next.

On his way to the vacuum, he grabbed his Walkman and thought he might as well listen to some tunes while he worked. He checked to see he still had a tape in it, and happily found he'd left his _ "Everything is Awesome Mix: Vol 2" _ mixtape in there. He shut it up again and hit play, as he put his headphones on and the loud music flowed through.

With the distraction of his music, he was able to get all the vacuuming done fairly quickly and barely noticed that the time had gone by. With that done, he crossed it off the list and made his way to the bathroom.

Luckily it wasn't too messy, they kept things fairly neat and orderly, but it wasn't his favourite job. He polished the tiles, bleached the toilet, and gave the bath and shower a quick scrub for good measure. But as he finished that and looked down at his list, he realised there was only one task left to do…

_ The Laundry. _

He checked the time on his wristwatch. Lucy had only been gone for about two hours now. There was no way she'd be back anytime soon. Even so, he double checked his phone for any messages. And apparently he did actually have one from her. 

Excited, he opened it up and found a text with a picture attached. He pulled off his headphones to focus as he read it.

_ "Unikitty just got into a 15 min argument with this guy over whether this chair was fuchsia or magenta. 😅 Looks like we're gonna be here a while... Was thinking of bringing some pizza back for dinner. What you think? 🤔 " _

Underneath the text was a picture of Unikitty with bright red fur, angrily yelling at some frazzled looking Systarian employee standing next to a pink armchair. Rex laughed and started writing a text back.

_ "Lol 😆 Tell her I think the _ ** _pink_ ** _ chair looks nice! And yeah, meat feast or somethin sounds good to me 👌" _

He hit send and waited a minute or two for a reply. He got a ping back pretty quickly.

_ "Well looks like the chair problem's solved. She went into Ultrakatty mode and smashed it after I told her you called it pink 😆 Gonna move on to another store now. Will let you know when I've got the pizza 😘" _

He smiled down at the text before he turned his phone off and put it back into his vest pocket.

  


So… now there was just that one task left to do. 

He could leave it for Lucy to do. She was always the one to do it anyway. But then he thought about how she might appreciate coming home and having nothing to do. And he supposed he'd done everything else, he might as well do it all since he had the time. Besides, how hard could it possibly be anyway?

Well… for him it could be impossible. He'd never even set foot into the laundry room before, let alone use it! 

But he was _ tough! _He could do this! He couldn't let something as simple and mundane as a chore beat him! He had to at least try.

He decided to start off small, picking up a few bits of dirty clothing from his and Lucy's rooms and taking them to the hamper in the hallway. When he got to it, he noticed it was already overflowing with clothes. It looked like it hadn't been done in a few days… Yeah he really couldn't leave that big mess for Lucy, could he?

It was quite a gargantuan task for him to tackle, but again, he took it one small step at a time. He still had to sort it out into different colours before he could even go into the laundry room after all. He started by pouring it all out and sitting down on the hall floor. Roughly he chucked vaguely similar colours into piles, until he had a pile of darks and a pile of lighter mixed colours. That would probably be fine. All he needed was one of those colours catching things and the right powder or something, and nothing would run. Probably…

But now was the hard part. 

He picked up the pile of dark clothes and made his way to the laundry room door. He stood before it as it loomed over him. As he looked at it, it seemed as menacing and eerie as The Stairgate had the first time he'd seen it. Nervously he swallowed. He'd never really been bothered by the door before. Probably because he'd always walked by it so quickly on his way to somewhere else, that he'd never paid it any mind. But now he was here. He had to open it and go in. 

His hand reached out towards the handle. 

It shook slightly, until he grasped the handle and held it tight. Slowly he turned the knob. The mechanism inside clicked and released. 

He paused. 

His hand shook a little more and rattled the door knob slightly. His shoulders tensed and his grip on the pile of clothes tightened. He squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth.

Then, he shoved the door open. 

Cautiously he opened his eyes, but the room in front of him was totally dark. He reached his hand just inside the room and found the light switch. He flicked it, and the whole room lit up.

There were cupboards and shelves and racks and various other things, but there were two main things that he'd locked onto and couldn't look away from.

Right in front of him was the washing machine… and the… _ dryer. _

His heartbeat quickened. Both of the machines were _ right there, _ sitting silently before him. He took a staggering step into the room, forcing himself forward.

He could do this. It was no big deal really. Just a simple little task. He tried to visualise his success. He just had to put the thing in the other thing and press go. Then he could leave, distract himself with some TV for half an hour, and then grab the washing and run out, and put it out to dry on the line. It would be a piece of cake!

Eventually, he was right next to the washing machine, but he wasn't looking at it. He still had his eyes totally fixed on the dryer. It just sat there, but it's menacing presence still cut through him and kept his gaze pinned on it. 

He forced himself to look away at the washing machine. For some reason it didn't have quite the same foreboding presence as the dryer did. He took a deep breath and calmed himself.

"It's ok. You can do washing! The washing machine isn't… _ the other one… _ It's totally different! You can do this Rex..."

He looked around the room and spotted the fabric softener, colour powder, and colour catching thingys. He pulled them down and set them to the side.

Next he opened the machine. He shoved all the clothes into the barrel, before putting in the colour catching thingy and shutting the door. He looked over at the dial and various buttons, and suddenly realised he had no idea what to do next.

He hadn't used a washing machine for 7 years. He hadn't even _ thought _ about using one in most of that time. What else did he need to do? How much stuff was he even supposed to use? 

Well, he figured he wanted about a 40 minute wash, so he started by turning the dial to set it to the right duration. Then he pulled out the drawer and saw three different slots. One had a powdery residue built up in it, whilst one looked a little slimy, and the last was clean and smooth. He figured he'd pour the fabric softener liquid in the slimy hole, right up to the max line that was in it. He had a big load to put on after all. It would probably need it. Then there was the powder. It had a small cup inside the box, so he guessed he should just put a cup full in the powdery hole.

He then shut the drawer, double checked the door was properly closed, then hit the start button on the machine.

Loudly a water drain inside it gushed, and a quiet hum began to drone. It made him jump back a step with a start and raise his arm defensively. Luckily it quietened quickly before he could do anything stupid and hit the thing.

He looked away and let out another shaky breath.

"Ok. When that's done, I'll just put it on the washing line outside. I don't even need to use… _ that." _He said, taking a tiny glance at the dryer before quickly power walking out the room and to the lounge. 

  


Sitting down on the sofa, realisation hit him.

He'd done it. He'd _ actually _ done it. He'd gone into the laundry room and actually used a washing machine! 

Yeah he still had to go back in there later, but he'd gotten way further than he'd thought he'd be able to. That made him feel pretty good about himself. 

He smiled as he turned on the TV. It immediately came on with an episode of Star Trek, and it was one of his favourite ones too! With Klingons and loads of space battles! It seemed his luck was turning around today. So he sat back and happily watched the rest of the episode as he waited for the washing to finish.

  


\-----

  


A while later, just as he was carrying the soaking washing out into the garden and about to put it on the line, he felt something wet fall on his head. He looked up and saw dark clouds above him. 

"Oh you have got to be kidding me…"

Rain then started rapidly falling out of the sky onto him. He quickly ran back inside before he got soaked, and looked back out the window. The rain was falling much heavier now, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. He looked down at the washing in his arms as it dripped onto the floor. Just what was he supposed to do with it now?

…

Well, there was _ one thing _ he could do to get it dry. But was he really ready to try that? Yeah things had gone well with the washing machine, but using the _ other thing _ was a whole different deal. Plus he'd already gotten this far, and he was sure Lucy would appreciate the effort he'd already gone to. 

But did he really want to fall at the final hurdle? He was close to getting at least one load done. Maybe if he could finish what he started now, he'd have less trouble with the whole thing in the future.

Surely it wouldn't hurt to try this too?

  


He made it back to the laundry room, once again standing at the precipice and staring at that one _ damn _ machine. 

He would have loved nothing more than to pick the damn thing up, hurl it out the nearest window, smash it to the ground and stomp it into smithereens until it was nothing but unrecognisable bolts and scraps of metal.

_ Buuuuuuut _ he didn't think Lucy would really appreciate that. So he decided it would be a very bad idea. 

  


He inched his way towards it, not once taking his eyes off of it like it was an angry raptor about to pounce. 

He was right in front of it now. It sat there silently, almost mocking him with its unassuming presence. He reached out a quivering hand towards its door. His fingers grasped around the handle. He was touching it. He was actually _ touching _ a dryer. It made his heart beat faster. He was right next to a dryer and he was _ using _ it. 

It made his skin crawl. Suddenly it hit him how much he _ really _ didn't like it. 

He was touching it. He didn't like that. He didn't want to be anywhere near the thing. He wanted to get as far away from it as possible and never see it again.

He couldn't do this. 

He couldn't…

...

He couldn't _ not _ do this.

He gritted his teeth, and in a swift move he quickly opened the door, flung the washing in, and slammed it shut. 

He turned away from it, panting like he'd just run a marathon. He put a hand to his heart as he could feel it pounding in his chest. 

That was done. The clothes were now in the machine. He'd fought half the battle, now all he had to do was turn it on and get out of there. 

Turning back around, he looked at buttons and dial on it. There were just two more things he had to do: turn the dial and press start. Simple! He reached his hand out, which was a lot steadier this time, but then he paused. 

He had a nagging thought pop into his head. 

It was an utterly ridiculous thought, of course. But it was one that was just too hard for him to possibly ignore. If he was gonna use this damn thing, then he had to check for what was bothering him and make sure he was wrong.

He pulled out his phone from his pocket and turned on its torch. Then, he lowered himself to the floor and looked under the dryer. He shined the light underneath and slowly scanned from one side to the other. There was dust under the dryer, and a few cobwebs, but nothing else. Absolutely nothing had fallen underneath it. It was totally clear and had no signs of life.

He turned off his light and slipped his phone back into his pocket as he stood up. With that out of the way, he felt marginally more at ease than he had before. So, he turned the dial and hit start.

The dryer whirred to life. He immediately froze.

He stood there, rooted in place as it slowly got louder and sped up. It droned and roared ferociously the faster it span, and the horrible sound reverberated in his head. He felt stiff and blocky as his arms were pinned to his side and his legs locked straight. His breathing got faster as he felt constricted and unable to move. 

He had to move.

He had to get away.

With great effort and concentration, he turned his head away to look at the floor. Despite the fact he could still hear it working away, not looking at it helped loosen him and make him less tense. He was able to fully turn his body away from it and slowly start walking out the room. Once he was out, he picked up the pace and headed away towards the living room. 

But somehow the wind like roar followed him. It stayed just as loud in his mind no matter how far he walked away from the laundry room. He tried to ignore it, but it stayed ever present no matter where he went in the house. It started to make him more and more agitated by the minute. Eventually he found himself in the kitchen staring out the back door. It was still raining outside. But that's when he noticed he could faintly hear it falling.

He walked out the back door onto the sheltered porch and noticed the quiet pitter patter of the rain get louder as the roar of the dryer got quieter. He stood there for a moment, just watching and listening to the rain peacefully fall around him. It was continuous and gentle, and that combined with the cool breeze made him distracted and calm.

He walked over to the porch swing and sat down, resting his hands on his lap as he stared out across the horizon at the rain. He closed his eyes and focused on it all. He could smell the fresh scent of wet grass in the atmosphere around him. The slight dampness in the air felt cool and refreshing on his skin. And the gentle sound of falling rain soothed him. 

He found the sound of the dryer was totally gone now. Replaced instead by the peaceful presence of the rain. 

He kept his eyes closed as he leant back and laid down on the swing. The sound of the rain washed over him and gave him a pleasing calm that made totally relax. 

He didn't know how long he stayed like that, but after a while he unknowingly found himself drift off to sleep.

  


\-----

  


When Lucy came home that evening, she walked through to the living room and dumped the box of pizza and a smaller box of garlic bread on the coffee table. 

"Rex! I'm back! I got the pizza with me!"

She waited for a reply, but was met with nothing but silence. That was odd. Where could Rex be?

She looked around the house, checking his room, the bathroom and all the others, but there was no sign of him. For a brief moment she wondered if he'd gone out somewhere, but then she remembered seeing his bike out front and his skateboard in the entryway. So unless he'd walked (which would have been silly in this rain) he was probably still here somewhere. 

She made her way back through the hall, but paused when she noticed a pile of light clothes sat on the floor next to the hamper. That was weird. She _ definitely _ hadn't left it like that. But why would Rex have-?

_ Oh no. _

At that moment she remembered she'd written laundry on the to-do list. But Rex _ never _ did the laundry! And given what he'd been through, she couldn't blame him. So there was no way he actually did it… right?

Quickly, she headed to the laundry room. The door was wide open and the light had been left on. Walking in, she saw the powder and fabric softener had been left on the floor next to the washing machine, and there was a load of clothing that had been left in the… dryer.

She was stunned.

Rex had not only washed a load of clothes, but used _ the dryer _ as well?? That was just entirely unprecedented! Why had he even done that? _ How _ had he even done that?! 

But wait, she still didn't know where he was. 

He'd used a dryer and now he was missing. 

_ Shit. _

She leapt into a run. She'd already checked every room in the house, so her next course of action was to check outside. She ran out the back door and onto the porch, ready to sprint through the garden and search for him, but she stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted him lying on the porch swing.

He was fast asleep with an arm draped over his stomach and a content look on his face. She walked over to him quietly and crouched down beside him. Very gently she shook his shoulder and tried to wake him.

"Rex? You awake?"

He slowly opened his eyes and looked at her, mildly confused.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

He smiled lovingly at her and moved his hand to rest over hers.

“I’m better, now that you’re here.”

She smiled back at him, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze before she moved it away. He then sat himself up and yawned.

"Guess I must have fallen asleep out here. Didn't expect that…"

She looked at him with concern.

"Are you sure you're ok? What were you doing out here?"

"Just distracting myself and enjoying the rain. No biggie." He shrugged, but she wasn't entirely convinced.

"I saw you did the- _ you know… _ I was quite surprised if I'm honest. You didn't have to do that! I could have done it when I got back!"

He looked a little nervous.

"Yeah I know… But there was a lot of it, and I had the time, and I didn't think you'd really want to be stuck with it all, so… I thought I'd at least try. It was tough, but I actually did well until it started raining and ended up stuck with a load of wet clothes. I had to use the… _ dryer. _ And that is _ not _ something I plan on doing again anytime soon, let me tell ya."

"But you know, it's not like I could just avoid the problem and ignore it forever. Sometimes you just have to try and face what's bothering you, if you can. Desensitise yourself to it and stuff. And yeah, things didn't go smoothly, but I still managed to get through doing a load of laundry. I got further with it in one day just by trying and taking it step by step, than I ever did in years of ignoring the issue. And I'm kinda proud of that, you know?"

Smiling at him, Lucy stood up and gave him a quick hug.

"You did great Rex."

He beamed and gave her a squeeze back before she pulled away.

"Now how about some pizza, huh?"

His stomach chose that exact moment to growl, and the two of them looked between each other before chuckling.

"I think that's a yes Luce."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know Drogerphobia is the fear of dryers? Me neither till I looked it up. And it's specifically for dryers too, doesn't include washing machines, which I thought was weirdly specific.
> 
> Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to have Rex try to tackle his fear a bit. I mean, it's not great for him to spend the rest of his life petrified every time a dryer is involved in anything. He's by no means over it of course, but I thought this would also be a good subject to show how his confidence in himself can be helpful (instead of just a hindrance by making him overly reckless xD) and how he could at least start to tackle his issues a bit. Poor dude could probably do with some serious therapy tbh ;-; But he's not gonna get any in this fic (at least on screen anyway) cause I wouldn't know how to really write that, and I have other more interesting ideas to do xD 
> 
> But he at least has his friends helping and supporting him x3 So it's not all bad!
> 
> Also the bottle cap thing is actually based on something my family does for my sister! Thought it would be a cute something to throw into this chapter :3


	6. Birthday Suit

Rex decided to start off his morning with a shower. He felt particularly groggy that morning after staying up late the night before. So he thought a brisk shower would help him wake up a bit more. As he stood in it and let the warm water wash over him, he stretched and let out a big yawn. He kind of wished he was better at staying up late like Lucy was. He almost always ended up paying for it the next morning.

As he was already in the shower, he decided he might as well wash his hair too. He thoroughly rubbed the 2-in-1 shampoo through his messy mop of hair for several minutes, before tipping his head back and rinsing it off. 

When he was done, he shut the shower off and grabbed a towel from a nearby rack. He rubbed his hair with it to get rid of most of the water, before using it to dry the rest of himself. 

Yawning again, he had a look at his face in the mirror. He debated whether he should shave or trim his stubble, but decided not to. He couldn't really be asked to faff around with that this morning. Maybe he should just go get a cup of coffee. That would probably help wake him up.

He walked out of the bathroom on autopilot and dropped his towel on top of the hamper as he walked past it.

  


Rex put a hand to his mouth as he yawned and stretched his other arm upwards. He walked into the kitchen, doing another stretch to pop and loosen his back. Boy he felt tired. The shower had helped a little, but not by much. But at least he was clean now, he supposed.

Lucy was already there making herself a cup of coffee on the counter. He smiled and waved as made his way into the middle of the kitchen.

"Mornin' Luce." He greeted.

She put down the spoon she was using and turned to greet him back.

"Hey, Rex. How are _ yooooooooouuuuuuuuu…" _

She froze on that word as she stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. He looked back at her confused, wondering what on earth she was doing, when he followed her gaze downwards. His heart stopped and his eyes shot wide open in shock. 

It seemed in his sleepy rush to get some coffee into him and wake up, he'd forgotten a very important step in his routine after getting out of the shower. 

He'd accidentally glossed over the whole 'put on clothes' thing. 

Slowly he looked up at Lucy as she did the same. Their eyes met, but neither one said or reacted in any way for a moment. Both were too busy trying to process what was happening to do much else. 

Then, everything erupted into chaos.

_ "BY THE MAN UPSTAIRS!!! REX!!!" _ Lucy yelled as she quickly turned her head away, and held up a hand to the side of her eye to give Rex as much privacy as she could.

_ "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT, _ ** _SHIT!_ ** _ " _ He shouted as he scrambled to think of anything in his panic. He reacted by clumsily grabbing a plate off the table and using it to cover himself, as he crossed his legs and turned his head away. 

Both of them had turned bright red with embarrassment, but Rex was absolutely dying of it on the inside. 

How had he been so STUPID??? How had he not noticed he'd forgotten his clothes??! He had no idea, and he was too frozen in shock to think of what to do.

Lucy turned her head towards him for a second to take a peek as she spoke to him.

"Uhhh… you gonna go put some clothes on or something???"

He was flooded by another wave of embarrassment. This time because of his stupidity to not immediately run back to his room as soon as he'd realised what was happening. His cheeks burned red hot as he blushed harder than he ever thought he could.

"yEaH! CLOTHES! Uh- right! I'm… I'm just gonna… ** _Yeah…_ **" he slowly backed his way out of the kitchen as he gave a painfully awkward smile. As soon as he was in the hall and out of sight, he turned and ran to his room. 

Lucy didn't dare move until she'd heard his door slam shut down the hall. She staggered over to the breakfast nook and fell onto one of the booth seats. 

Well…

_That_ _happened_.

She wasn't expecting to see Rex like_ that _ this morning. And well, neither had he.

It had been so unexpected for her that her mind had frozen and she hadn't been able to turn away immediately. Rex was probably so embarrassed…

She knew he had been in the shower. But who on earth could forget to do that one important step afterwards? Well, Rex did, apparently. Though how he could only notice he was still in his birthday suit when he reached the kitchen was beyond her.

She tried not to think about what she'd seen, for the sake of Rex's privacy, but what just happened was still very much on her mind.

Back during the apocalypse, she'd seen Emmet in not very much before. The place had been a desert wasteland, so there had been a number of times it had been so hot, he'd had to take both his shirt and undershirt off. He'd always been quite modest and nervous about it. Years of following Octan's instructions had ingrained the idea to always wear at least one layer of clothing around others. But she'd always done her best to reassure him. 

And well, of course she'd noticed how different Rex's physique was now, to what she'd known before. But she'd never seen Rex with so little clothing to really compare. Yeah, she'd seen he'd had a thinner waist and he had more chiselled features, like his prominent cheekbones, but it turned out that wasn't even the half of it.

Those toned muscles weren't just limited to his arms, they were _ everywhere! _ He even had a six-pack! 

Recalling that made her cheeks flush up all over again. He really looked _so_ _different._

She really needed to stop thinking about it before Rex came back. She didn't want to embarrass him any further. Maybe he was a confident, cocky guy on the outside with a ton of bravado, but it seemed when it came to some things, he still had the same old Emmet sense of modesty.

She thought it best to distract herself, and chose to continue making herself and Rex some coffee. Not that either of them really needed a dose of caffeine to shock them awake after that whole fiasco. 

  


\-----

  


Rex slammed his bedroom door behind him and pressed himself against it. After a few seconds he walked over to his bed, dropped the plate on it, and promptly grabbed a pillow, which he then proceeded to shove his face into and yell in frustration. 

He fell forward onto the bed and crushed his pillow in his hands. 

That. Was. _ The Most. _ Embarrassing thing. He'd _ ever _ done. It was a million times worse than that one time he'd done something similar on his way to work as he walked out of his apartment. At least then no one had seen him. This time _ Lucy, _ the person he _ lived with _ and had to see _ every day, _ and that he lo… that he _ really cared about _ had seen him. He would never live it down. Maybe it would be best if his bed just swallowed him up so he didn't have to deal with the ensuing awkwardness he and Lucy would have to deal with…

But, after a few minutes of moping face down on his bed, he got up and got some clothes out his chest of drawers. He put them on fairly quickly, and then triple checked he had everything on correctly when he was done, thankful he regularly wore so many layers. He sat back down on his bed and looked at the plate he'd brought with him.

He could take it back to the kitchen to be washed, but he didn't feel like he'd ever want to eat off it again after knowing where it had been. So instead, he dropped it into his bin as he walked out of his room.

He walked quite slowly to the kitchen, not exactly eager to see Lucy so soon after earlier's _ incident. _

As soon as he stepped into the kitchen she looked up at him, and he immediately blushed bright red again. He tried using a tough tone and a small smile to hide is glaring embarrassment, but it just didn't work right.

_ "Morning… Again…" _

She weakly smiled back and kept glancing away from him.

"Morning Rex." 

He sat himself down across from her in the breakfast nook and noticed she'd left him a cup of coffee. Of course it was in another one of his dinosaur mugs, this one in particular said _ 'Touch my coffee and I will bite you' _ with an angry, sleepy looking T-Rex on it. He took a sip, staring out the window and avoiding conversation for as long as possible.

"So. What did you do with the plate?"

Rex looked at her in surprise before slowly lowering his cup from his lips and putting it down.

"Oh I threw it away. There was _ no way _ we were using that thing again." He said, doing that nervous laugh of his. 

Lucy supposed he had a point and decided to shrug it off. 

"So, what do you want for breakfast? I was going to do some sausage, bacon and eggs but I thought I'd see how you felt."

His face went even more red as he looked at her again.

"Yeah, I'm not really in the mood for… something that heavy right now. I think I'll just have some cereal."

He avoided eye contact with her as he stood and grabbed some cereal from the cupboard. She looked over to him. He hadn't stopped blushing even a little since he'd come back in. There had to be a way she could make him feel better about it.

  


"You know, I bet that was pretty embarrassing…" 

He paused whilst he was crouched down getting a bowl from a lower cupboard.

"...** _yep_ ** _ ." _

She smiled at him and tilted her head.

"You wanna know what the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen was?"

He was about to pour some cereal into the bowl, but stopped and looked at her instead.

"What?" He asked softly.

"This one time Metalbeard was at a spa, and he was _ way _ too into having barnacles scrubbed off his ass." She giggled.

His face scrunched up incredulously.

"Oh come on, how was this not worse than that?!"

She stopped her giggling for a moment to smirk at him.

"Hey, your talking to someone who has gone by the names Darkstorm, Geminizzle, Neversmile, Freakface, and Snazzypants, so _ trust me, _ I know embarrassing."

He smiled at her, before pouring his cereal and moving to the fridge.

"Heh. Yeah, I guess I'd be embarrassed too if I ever went by something like _ 'Geminizzle'." _

"Oh well you're certainly one to talk, _ 'Radical Emmet X-treme'!" _

He shot straight up and nearly dropped the milk he was holding on the counter.

"W-who told you about that?!"

She rested her elbow on the table and leaned into her hand as she devilishly smirked at him.

"You did. Just now. When you admitted it."

He looked slightly horrified at that, but it just made her laugh.

"C'mon! I think it's sweet. It makes a pretty good name you know, Rex." 

Pouring the milk into his bowl, he smiled and gave her a sideways glance.

"You really think so?"

"I do. It's very cool. Just like you."

His blush had lessened significantly, but his heart fluttered faster as he appreciated her comforting comment.

"Thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed this awkward hilariousness 😆 I'll be putting those two silly doodles I did up on my Tumblr soon, in case you wanna see the full pic of dorky Rex running down the hall 😂
> 
> Link to the doodles -> https://malisonquill.tumblr.com/post/187562415625/the-two-doodles-i-did-for-chapter-6-they-were-so


	7. One Of Those Bad Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rex has his good days and his bad days...
> 
> This is a bad day.
> 
> (Also happy birthday to me, lol xD This is so ironic )

Lucy walked into the house late in the evening. It was raining heavily outside, so she was quick to shut the door behind her and shrug off her soaking wet coat. She hung it up on the hook and kicked off her boots, messily leaving them next to the shoe rack. As she turned to lock the door, she heard something odd from the lounge. Puzzled, she quickly made her way towards it, stopping dead in the archway when she saw the scene in front of her.

Rex was curled in on himself, sat on the sofa. He was surrounded by half a dozen empty ice cream cartons and a forest's worth of used tissues that were strewn about absolutely everywhere. He was clutching a half eaten carton of chocolate cookie dough ice cream in one arm, and with his other hand was shoveling big spoonfuls of it in his mouth. There were drops of melted ice cream staining the sofa, and a lot more that had been spilt on his shirt. He was also constantly snuffling. She could see that his eyes and face were red, and that he had fresh tear tracks running down his face. He was silently watching the TV, which he'd muted, and was currently on an ad break anyway. 

“You’re a mess!” She blurted out. She caught his attention just as he'd put another spoonful of ice cream in his mouth. He yanked the spoon out, and angrily scowled at her.

“I’m an entire fucking dumpster!” He snapped. There was a slight pause, and then he let out a big burp. He looked away from her, somewhat ashamed, hugging the tub closer to his chest and stabbing his spoon into it with a wet smack. 

As she looked at him, she realised she might not have used the best choice of words to approach the situation. Slowly she walked into the room, trying a gentler approach to find out what was wrong. 

"Are you ok? What happened?"

He left his spoon stuck in the runny ice cream as he took a quick glance at her, before looking away again.

"I was watching a marathon of Tom Hanks movies."

Ah. Well that was understandable. There were a number of very emotional movies that could have come on. Though she wasn't quite sure what one in particular could have set Rex off on a sad ice cream binge just this much.

"Ooh. Was it Green Mile?" She asked. 

He kept looking away from her.

"No."

"Philadelphia?"

He hugged the tub tighter.

"No."

"Sleepless in Seattle?" She suggested. 

He snapped his head towards her with an angered snarl.

_"Fuck_ _No!"_

She jerked back a step at his tone. And the fact he used a swear word that strong. She still wasn't quite used to that from him. Slowly though, his irritable demeanour faded and he deflated sadly.

"It was Castaway…"

…

_ Oh _ .

Well, thinking about it, she could see why a movie about a man getting stranded alone on a deserted island for years would have been enough of a touchy subject for Rex to set him off. 

He looked down in his tub of ice cream and lazily stirred the spoon in thought.

"The guy in it got stuck alone. For years. Isolated. With no one but an inanimate object to talk to…"

He sniffed as more tears began to run down his face. His voice went quiet and soft.

"I didn't even have  _ that _ on Undar…"

_ "Rex…" _ She said softly as she walked over to him. She knocked some of the tissues off the couch and sat down beside him, but he just kept looking away from her and hugged the tub of ice cream even tighter. She looked at it, then at all the other empty tubs lying around the place. 

"So, why the ice cream?"

He saw her look at him with concern. So after about a minute, he answered her in a soft, quiet, croaky voice.

_ "I had to stop watching and pause it after he lost Wilson… I just walked into the kitchen and wanted something to feel better. So I just grabbed all the ice cream I could. I didn't really think about it." _

She looked around again. He wasn't kidding when he said he'd grabbed everything he could. He'd taken out and eaten almost their whole supply. She didn't even know anyone  _ could  _ eat that much in one go. 

But one thing it did reiterate, was that he obviously hadn't been thinking clearly. 

"Why not stop watching the movie if it made you so upset?" She asked. It didn't make sense to her why he'd even watched that far into the movie. Why wouldn't he have stopped watching as soon as he saw the main character stuck alone on the island?

  
  


_ "I had to know what happened. I needed to see if he made it…" _ He said as he leaned forward to put the ice cream tub on the table, before sitting back and curling in on himself again.

She supposed that made sense. If he related to the story so much that it sucked him in despite how severely it bothered him, then of course he'd want to see how it ended. 

"Well he did make it back, didn't he? He came back home. He had a happy ending, right?" She reassured. 

_ "Nooo! No he didn't!" _ He whined, turning himself away from her and grabbing his hair in frustration. There was then an audible rumbling sound from his stomach, which made him grimace and hug his torso tight. 

She was sure the ending would have reassured him. That it would have showed him someone who made it through the bad times and got his happy ending. So she was dumbfounded as to why it had made him more upset.

She tried scooching closer to him and lightly rested a hand on his back to comfort him.

"But he met the girl with the wings and halo symbol from the package, that got him through everything. He probably ends up with her afterwards or something. What's not happy about that?"

He stayed quiet for a moment.

_ "She's not the girl he wanted when he got back… The woman he loved… She…" _

He tensed up and hugged himself tighter. 

_"She _**_moved on_** **_without him_**_, even though she still loved him and he loved her."_

Lucy's reassuring smile fell and she moved her hand away from his back. Rex continued.

_ "S-s-she tried to rescue him. To help find him. But it didn't work. She had to give up…" _

He let out a sob as he buried his face into his hands.

  
  


_ " _ ** _You_ ** _ left  _ ** _me_ ** _ behind…" _

  
  


Quickly, he started sobbing more and more as his feelings overwhelmed him. The old pain of abandonment stabbed at his heart. His high pitched voice cracked as he broke down, all over again.

  
  


“I waited, and  _ waited _ , and  ** _waited_ ** _ , _ but you never came back!”

His crying got louder and he shuddered violently with sobs, as he desperately tried to wipe his tears away with his arm. But it didn't work. The tears kept coming, and he cried out in agony as another wave of emotions crashed into him. 

  
  


She stared at him intently with tears glistening in her eyes. She'd never,  _ ever _ seen Rex break down like this. She'd barely even seen him cry that much before. She wasn't even sure she'd seen  _ Emmet  _ quite this emotional and utterly, horribly, broken. It shattered her heart into pieces. 

Even after all this time he was still just as hurt and betrayed as he'd ever been. Things had been better for him since he'd come back, but nothing, not even a time machine, could  _ ever _ undo what had happened to him. He'd always be hurt by it. They would always have the fact hanging over both of their heads, that she hadn't saved him. She wished so desperately she'd been able to. Not because she wanted Emmet back instead of Rex (she'd grown to care about him too much as he was now to ever want that), but because she could have spared him so much suffering. 

But it was then she realised something. Something that it only occurred to her now, that she'd never actually said to him.

  
  


She reached out to Rex, putting a tight hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

"Rex… I cannot tell you, how utterly,  _ utterly,  _ ** _sorry_ ** I am for never being able to find you. I know that's no excuse. It doesn't even begin to make up for what you went through, or the last things I said to you… But I  _ need _ you to know…  ** _I'm sorry_ ** _ ." _

He quietened down a little. He turned and looked back at her, utterly bemused. She started crying harder, her own emotions of regret, sorrow and anger at herself dragging her down. She took her hand away and turned away from him, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

She was right, he thought. An apology couldn't make up for anything. It didn't change anything about what had already been done. But still, just hearing her say it was enough to lift some of his pain. And now, more than ever, he was absolutely certain she'd never left him on purpose or moved on because she didn't care about him. There was no longer any nagging doubt in the back of his mind about that at all. She really had tried her absolute hardest to save him and get him back. It had just been an impossible task out of anyone's control.

In his sweetest, softest, most frightened, most Emmet-like voice, he replied to her.

“Just… Promise me you’ll never leave me again. I don’t care if you have to lie.”

She looked back to him. The two of them stared at each other. The tears that ran down Lucy's face slowed slightly. Gently, she raised a hand to his face and lovingly cupped his cheek. A single tear ran down his frozen face, and she wiped it away with her thumb. 

“I am _never_ leaving you again. And that's _no lie._ _I _**_love you_**. Never forget that, okay?”

She meant it. Every word. She was determined to do everything in her power and beyond to never  _ ever _ be separated from him like that again. She cared about him. She'd never stopped loving him, and getting him back, getting used to who he was now, was like falling in love with him all over again. She would never let all that they'd built up go.

And he knew that. He trusted her so much that there was no doubt in his mind that her words were true.  _ She loved him. _

"I…"

He paused. The phrase he wanted to echo died in his throat as his nerves got the better of him.

"I won't forget it." He answered instead. His tears coming to a stop as he raised a hand to hold over the one she had against his cheek. Gently he rubbed a thumb over her hand and the kind action finally made Lucy's tears subside.

  
  


They both gave each other small smiles. But suddenly, Rex's face turned to a grimace and he pulled his hand away from hers to clutch at his stomach.

"Ah!  _ Owww! _ " 

"What is it?!" She asked, panicking.

"Urgh, my stomach!" He whined. He hugged himself tight as a pang of pain shot through his abdomen.

Lucy put a hand on his shoulder as she looked around again at the empty tubs. He pouted at her, looking very sorry for himself.

"Well, you did eat  _ a lot _ of ice cream..."

A loud gurgle emanated from his stomach, and he groaned.

_ "Oh. I think I'm gonna-" _

He cut himself off as he gagged. Quickly he slapped a hand over his mouth and shot up with a start, leaping over the table and running out the room. Lucy followed him and found him in the bathroom on his knees hunched over the toilet. She grimaced when she heard the sounds he was making, but then there was a pause and he gasped a big breath. 

_ "Urgh! Stupid stuffy nose!" _ He nasily said between gasps.

She realised then that because he'd been crying, he probably couldn't breathe through his nose very well. Not exactly something that was helpful when his mouth was occupied with other things. 

_ "Poor Rex really was having a bad day wasn't he?" _ She thought.

She walked over and looked at him with pity as he coughed and spluttered into the toilet bowl. With one hand, she rubbed a hand up and down his back, and with the other she pulled some strands of hair out the way of his face. 

After a particular harsh sounding gag, she started to shush him soothingly and gently tell him things like  _ 'there, there' _ and  _ 'you'll be alright'. _

If he'd been able to think much about it, he'd probably have been touched by what she was saying and the way she was gently caressing his back. But even though he was otherwise occupied, enough of it was able to get through and make him feel slightly better.

Eventually he stopped. He stayed there for a moment as he rested his arms on the rim of the bowl. He panted as he caught his breath, his head hung forward with exhaustion.

" _ Urgh! _ Why did I eat so much ice cream…"

He sat up a bit more, and Lucy leaned over him to flush the toilet and get rid of the smell. Then she sat back behind him, wrapping an arm around his back and gently coaxing him backwards. He leant back into her open arms and sighed as he relaxed.

"Guess my body just can't deal with comfort eating like it used to, huh?"

She frowned at that and hugged him a bit tighter, but not too much, so she didn't accidentally aggravate his unsettled stomach or anything. He rested a hand on one of her arms as he closed his eyes and rested his head against her.

"How about we get you some water and some medicine to calm your stomach, huh?"

He sighed contently and held her arm a bit firmer.

"In a minute. I'm quite comfy here for a sec…"

She smiled and leaned into him. Together the two of them sat on the bathroom floor, and Rex found that one of his bad days had a better end than he'd initially expected. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed those feels! This chapter is actually one of my favourites :3 And guys, lUCY SAID THE THING!!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!! x3
> 
> And yeah, imagining the scene and writing out Rex sobbing was very, very close to making me myself cry ;-; That kind of thing always gets to me the most!
> 
> The next chapter is the polar opposite to this one tho, so hopefully the fluff in it will make up for the angst in this one.


	8. One Of Those Good Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rex has his good days and his bad days...
> 
> This is a good day :)
> 
> Also before you read, I'd recommend listening to Mötley Crüe's 'Kickstart my heart' at as loud a volume as you can :> So you're familiar with it as you read this... ;)

Lucy parked up in front of the house and started grabbing some bags of shopping out of the saddle bags of her recently modified motorbike. She'd decided to give it an upgrade to make it more useful and cool looking. It was bigger, with thick round tyres, a big compartment under the seat, and a box on the back that could have two saddle bags attached for extra storage. She'd also repainted it to be all black with bright blue and pink bubbles splattered along it.

As she walked up to the front door, she heard loud banging and crashing coming from inside. For a brief moment she was worried Rex had gone off on one and was breaking something. But as she fumbled with the handle to open the door, she realised it had too much of a continuous rhythm that almost sounded more like music.

She walked through the door and into the living room archway. She dropped the bags of shopping on the floor and looked at the odd scene in surprise.

"Are those drums?!!"

Rex was sat at an entire drum kit, expertly playing out a beat as he bit his lip in concentration and bobbed his head. She noticed he'd forgone his usual shirt and vest look to wear a new shirt that Unikitty had bought him, which was a black, sleeveless shirt that said  _ 'Good Boy Gone Rad' _ in a bubbly font with a pink, yellow and blue rainbow on it. When he noticed her, he looked up and gave her a quick wave before continuing with his drumming.

"Yep! Batman got them, that guitar, and the speakers for us!"

After getting over the initial surprise of Rex competently playing an instrument, she noticed there was a black, pink and blue guitar propped up on the sofa, and also a couple of massive speakers attached to a sound system.

"What? Why?!"

Rex shrugged as he continued.

"Dunno! He said he was giving them to us 'cause he was getting some new ones and was just gonna throw these out.  _ Buuuuuutttttt _ a certain someone forgot to take off this brand new tag! Ha ha!" He said, taking out a price tag from his trouser pocket and waving it around. She took it from him and inspected it, as he picked up the stick and continued drumming. She let out a long, impressed whistle as she saw how many digits were on the tag.

"Wow! That is pricey!"

"Yeah. But I guess it's chump change when you're a billionaire!"

She laughed and put the tag down on the coffee table. Looking over at Rex and seeing him so happy and engrossed in playing made her smile. She had no idea he could play anything, let alone that well.

"Well you certainly seem to be enjoying those drums!"

"Yeah, they're pretty rad!" He said as he finished off his beat with and energetic flourish.

He put his sticks down on the snare drum and stood up.

"Oh! Oh! C'mon check this out!"

He waved his hand and both of them moved over to the sound system. 

"You gotta listen to these speakers play some tunes! They rock!"

He grabbed a  _ Mötley Crüe _ cassette tape from a pile he'd dumped next to the sound system, and shoved it in the slot. It took a second for the machine to load up the tape before it started playing the first track,  _ 'Kickstart My Heart'. _

Suddenly, a long, droning guitar chord, remenicant to a motorcycle engine, got increasingly louder and higher in pitch, as it belted out the massive speakers at max volume. Lucy felt like her skeleton was shaking as the other instruments started to kick in, somehow even louder than the first guitar. It made her slap her hands to her head to cover her ears, in an attempt to dampen the sound slightly, though it wasn't at all effective. As the drums and the beat started to really kick up, Rex beamed at her and tried to shout over the music.

" **YOU CAN REALLY HEAR THE BASS WITH THESE!"**

She saw his mouth move and thought she heard some kind of garbled muffle that might have been words, but she had no clue what he'd just said. Which was certainly impressive given they were literally standing right next to each other.

_ " _ ** _WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"_ ** She shouted back at him.

He looked at her utterly confused. Due to years of listening to mixtapes super loud, his hearing wasn't always great. So the loud music made it all the more hard to hear what she was saying.

_ " _ ** _WHAAAT?!_ ** ** I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"**

Lucy removed her hands from her ears and made a motion to quieten the music down. Rex nodded and turned the volume down just enough for them to be able to hear each other over the music. Though it was still somewhat loud.

"Sounds good right?" He observed as he set the remote down on the sound system.

Lucy shook her head as a persistent ringing sound echoed in her ears.

"Yeah... Great." She said, sounding slightly muffled to herself. Rex just barked a laugh and grinned.

"It's not just great, it's awesome!"

Just then, the lyrics started. Rex quickly found himself bobbing to the sound, and before long he was fully thrashing his head and torso back and forth with his eyes closed and his tongue sticking out. She giggled at him and he took notice. He smiled mischievously and grabbed onto her hand, pulling her into the open space in the middle of the room. 

"What are you doing?" She laughed.

He let go of her and started doing some kicks and arm waves in time with the rhythm, as he smiled and looked up at her.

"What's it look like? We're dancing!"

She shook her head and laughed as she watched him.

_ "'We?'"  _

"Yeah! C'mon! Unless you're too scared by my awesome skills?" He taunted, as he span around with a flourish.

_ "Please! _ Let me show you how it's done!" She said with a smirk.

The two of them faced each other in the middle of the room. The rapid tempo and loud major-key guitar chords fuelled their increasingly energetic movements with contagious excitement. 

As the song continued, they danced faster and faster. Lucy did a lot of fancy footwork and kicks, whilst Rex did more spins and rapid arm motions.

Rex was so pumped up and into the song, he even did some air guitar and leaped into the air at some particularly good riffs. Lucy couldn't help but chuckle and copy him too.

They grinned widely and laughed at each other and all the fun they were having, as they danced closer to each other.

_ "WOAH!" _

Rex leaned forward towards Lucy in time with the word as he shouted it out.

_ "YEAH!" _

She did the same, shouting out the line and making him lean back as she leant forward.

  
  


They moved away again, circling around each other as they bobbed and weaved to the beat.

  
  


Then, they both leaned into each other, shoulder to shoulder as they shouted out the next long, drawn out word.

_ "BAAAABBBYYYYYY!!!!" _

As they sang it, they turned to face each other. Then, a long guitar chord rang out as the other instruments stopped and the pounding drum beat switched to a constant light symbol tap. The quiet section of the song gave them a small respite from the rest of the exciting, adrenaline pumping parts. It made them catch their breath and just look at each other. They stared into one another's eyes. 

Rex glanced down. 

Lucy was now holding his left hand in hers. He gently grabbed her left hand and held it in his right, before looking back up at her. They inched closer together and swayed slowly from side to side as the quiet middle-eight continued.

Then a deeper, short guitar riff played along with a quick smash of the drums. They devilishly smirked at each other in unison. They both grabbed the others hands tighter, and started to pull back and push forward their opposite arms in time with each smash of instruments. 

Then as the drums changed to a slow, but more regular beat, and the strum of each chord was held for longer, they slid away from each other, mirroring each other's movements. They each held one hand and waved their free hand out behind them with a kick out and a flourish, before alternating to do the same with the opposite hand. They did their mirrored movements perfectly in time with both each other and the beat. As the music started to build up again, they even did some kicks in parallel directions, and started waving their arms faster in time with the beat.

  
  


The tempo then rapidly picked up again, as the fast paced energetic part from earlier continued. 

They danced much closer together this time, holding hands and circling around as they jumped and sang along to the song.

  
  


They held on tight to each other's hands and leant back away from the other, as they used their weight to keep both of them from falling backwards. They spun around, laughing and whooping with fun as they started moving faster, and faster, and faster. 

  
  


As the song came to an end, the crazy guitar riff reached its climax, and Rex and Lucy let go of each other and span out further apart.

  
  


Lucy stumbled backwards as she dizzily continued to spin. After a few steps, she lost her footing as she slipped on something and started to fall. 

Rex was at her side in an instant. He successfully managed to reach out his arm and catch her in a dip hold, just as the last part of the song ended. He smiled down at her in relief as he realised she was unharmed, before changing his tune to a cheeky, confident grin. 

"Woah! Had a nice trip there Luce?"

"Har-har! Very funny." She said sarcastically. She looked down and behind her to see what she had tripped on, and saw water leaking out of one of the shopping bags she’d left on the floor under the archway.

"Whoops. Looks like the frozen stuff is melting. Think you can help me put it away?"

“Sure.” He said, as he effortlessly pulled her upright. 

  
  


She moved away from him and the both of them picked up a couple shopping bags, before heading to the kitchen with them. 

Rex had picked up a bag of frozen foods, so prioritised them and put them away first, as Lucy went elsewhere in the kitchen. 

As he put away a tub of ice cream and a bag of frozen peas, he noticed a small chunk of loose ice sat on the freezer shelf. He glanced over in Lucy's direction. She was still crouched down in front of one of the cupboards as she was putting away a few bits. Looking back at the freezer, he got an idea. He picked up the chunk of ice with a devilish grin, and slowly started to sneak his way over to Lucy.

He was absolutely silent when he approached her, and she was none the wiser to his presence as he stood right behind her. Carefully, he lifted the piece of ice into the air.

Then dropped it.

It slid right down her neck and travelled down her back. She shouted in surprise and wiggled around as she tried to grab at the unexpected coldness from behind her back. Rex took a step back from her and threw his head back as he started laughing and snorting boisterously. She continued to struggle, but scowled once she saw Rex laughing and realised what he'd done.

"REX!!! YOU  _ ASSHOLE!!!" _

He kept chortling, even as she stood and turned to face him with grumpy frown. She shivered as the now tiny chunk of ice fell out the bottom of her hoodie and onto the floor. 

“Could you BE a worse person?” 

She stared at him grumpily with her hands on her hips as she got right up in his face. His laughing subsided to a quiet chuckle, but he still looked very amused with himself. 

_ “Easily.” _ He smirked, with that big toothy grin of his. 

She couldn't be mad at him with that cheeky grin on his face. His good mood was just too contagious. But she wasn't about to let him just get away with his prank either.

"Oohhh. I'm  _ so _ gonna get you back for that!"

He leaned in close to her face as his grin got even wider.

"I'd like to see you  _ try, _ Luce!"

Immediately she crouched down and grabbed the small chunk of ice off the floor. But by the time she was back up, he'd turned tail and ran out the doorway.

_ "Come here!" _ She yelled. 

On her way out, she noticed some more loose chunks of ice in the freezer. She quickly grabbed a large handful and ran out after Rex. 

She followed the sound of him laughing and chased him into the lounge. In a swift move, she tackled him to the floor, making him land on his back. She pinned him down and pulled his shirt collar forward, promptly shoving the ice down his front. Immediately he gasped and wiggled from the shocking cool temperature.

_ "AHAHA! NO FAIR! I didn't use that much on you!!" _

She smirked playfully as she kept his arms pinned to his sides to keep him from removing the ice.

"That's what you get for starting it,  _ Rexy!" _

He stopped his wriggling and stared at her like she'd grown a second head or something.

"Ok, I don't know  _ what  _ you just called me, but  _ never  _ do it again."

"Oh really? What are you gonna do about it, huh?" 

Suddenly her hands darted from holding his arms, and she mercilessly started tickling every sensitive spot of his she could.

_ "What are you gonna do?!" _ she taunted, as he started giggling and wriggling harder and harder.

"NO! Ha! Stop! Y-you c-cruel- Ha Ha!-  _ Monster!!" _ he cried out between laughs. But it was no use. Lucy did not relent. She continued her barrage of tickles till he was blue in the face. 

  
  


Once she was satisfied he’d received sufficient punishment for his earlier prank, she stopped and sat back to give him some space.

As he laid there on the floor, still laughing as he recovered from Lucy’s impromptu tickling session, he looked up at her happy, smiling face. 

And Rex was happy to find that one of his good days, could end even better than it had begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that fluff!!! I know I did writing it ;) I love how Rex is a lot more cheeky and snarky than Emmet, it gives him and Lucy such good banter like this!!!!
> 
> The dancing was a little tricky to describe because it's a really visual thing but in written words, but I think it worked ok :)
> 
> Also that shirt Rex wears is based on this post  
https://lily-darling-pan.tumblr.com/post/184071091805/so-i-saw-this-shirt-the-other-day
> 
> Why did I have him wear this shirt you might ask? Because I thought it was cute, and it's my story and I can do what I want >:D So he gets this cute shirt to wear as a one off thing. (Tho who knows, maybe it'll come back, idk)


	9. The Pits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy this extra long chapter! This one is actually about 7,700 words on its own! Also it's one of my favourites ;)

Lucy sat silently in the pitch black living room and waited. It was about 10pm, and Rex had _ 'gone to bed' _ half an hour earlier. It was odd, because usually he went to bed at 10:30. But she'd noticed he'd been going to bed early, at that specific time, for the past every other Saturday for a little over a month. When it had last happened two weeks ago, she'd thought she'd heard his motorcycle engine outside. And sure enough, when she had checked in the garage out front, it was gone. When she'd gone to check on Rex to confirm whether he had taken it or someone had stolen it, she found his door was locked. She banged on it for a few minutes, but had no response, so she decided to double check he was there and if he was ok by going outside and looking in through the window. But stranger still, when she'd reached it, it had been left wide open with Rex nowhere in sight.

It confirmed to her that he'd snuck out, but the real question was why? 

Usually he'd tell her if he was going out somewhere, or at least leave her a message written down. He was 34 years old and a grown adult, capable and allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted. She didn't see why he'd need to sneak out. Not unless, he was up to something he shouldn't be…

And so that's why she was here tonight, sitting alone in the dark, patiently waiting.

If he was sneaking out, she wanted to know why and be sure he wasn't doing something he could get hurt by or in trouble for. Man Upstairs knows what recklessly crazy shit a man with Rex's repertoire could get up to...

Suddenly she heard the garage door open quietly. Peeking out the window, she saw Rex walking his bike out and heading down the hill. He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and kept glancing behind himself like he was looking out for something. Or rather, _ someone. _

Yeah, innocent people didn't exactly suspiciously check over their shoulder whilst sneaking out of their own home late at night. He was _ definitely _ up to something. 

She waited a couple more minutes for him to disappear down the hill, before sneaking out to grab her own bike and follow him.

She kept a fair distance behind him, making sure she could tail him without being spotted. Once he'd gotten a reasonable distance away from the house, he stowed his duffel bag and hopped on his bike. He revved it to life and sped off towards the city, as Lucy did the same. 

Strangely though, instead of going into the city and joining a road, he turned and followed the dirt tracks around the outskirts of the city. The lush greenery slowly turned into dirt and dust as they started heading out into the desert. That really confused her. She didn't think there was much left out in the desert besides a few old wrecked buildings. So she had no idea where Rex was sneaking off to, or why. She hoped she wouldn't find he was up to anything dodgy out there…

Eventually she noticed a faint glow in the distance. It got brighter as the light cut through the darkness and Rex headed towards it. She noticed an increasing number of tyre tracks in the sand as they got closer, and she could even hear the sound of other vehicles nearby too.

Finally she could see what was ahead, but it just added more questions to her already growing list. 

There was a large arena, almost like a coliseum, just slap bang in the middle of the desert. It was definitely something that had been made during the apocalypse. The wrought iron beams were all rusted and dusty, and jagged bits of scrap metal stuck out everywhere. There was a large sign made of old letters from various shop signs and billboards that read _ 'The Pits', _ and had two jets beside it that sprayed out balls of fire every minute or so.

She stared up at it in awe and confusion. How had she had no idea that this place existed?

"HEY! Watch it!" A strange, gruff voice barked.

She snapped her head towards the sound and veered away as she noticed another person on a motorcycle riding beside her. The guy shook his head and sped forward. Then she suddenly noticed even more people on various dirt-bikes and custom vehicles gathering around her and heading towards a fairly full and busy car park. 

It was then she realised that she'd lost sight of Rex. She sped forward and weaved through the other vehicles as she tried to catch sight of him, but it was no use. There were too many other people, and she'd gotten too close to the busy car park to see him through the chaos.

She decided to slow down and park up, changing to search for Rex on foot. He'd obviously driven to this place for a reason. What that would be, she wasn't sure. She didn't even know what kind of things went on at this place. But she was very curious to find out, and she was certain she'd be able to find Rex somewhere in all this mess.

She made her way to the entrance, finding she had to pay $30 for a ticket just to get in! The person at the ticket stand said she shouldn't wait until the last minute to buy a ticket next time, though somehow the guy had neglected to mention just what exactly she'd bought a ticket for. 

When she'd finally gotten inside she saw rows and rows of seats in a giant oval, surrounding a massive, deep pit filled with sand. There were four iron gates, like a castle's portcullis, that opened up into the pit from a lower level. Around the top edge of the pit was a defensive barrier made of more jagged metal shards and barbed wire, designed to both keep the audience out and stop whatever was in the pit from flying upwards and injuring someone.

She looked away from it and to the bustling crowd, scanning over it to try and spot Rex. You'd think finding a guy in a bright orange safety vest amongst a crowd of dusty, dark, and spikey clad apocalypse enthusiasts would be easy. But as it turned out, it was incredibly difficult. 

She started walking through the stands, her eyes darting everywhere trying to find him. But just then, a loud voice started shouting out of some nearby speakers.

_ "Ladies, Gentlemen, and all lovers of high octane action! Tonight's fight will begin in 10 minutes! Make sure you're in your seats and prepare for a battle of the ages!" _

_ "A fight???" _ She thought.

Why on earth had Rex come out here to watch a fight? And what kind of fight was it anyway? Wrestling? Dog fighting? A one-on-one brawl to the death??? 

Admittedly that last one was unlikely, but given this place was still stuck back in the apocalypse, it wasn't impossible.

She continued her search through the stands, all the while wondering why Rex had come out here to watch a fight. Emmet had been such a pacifist. Preferring to talk his way out of a situation and de-escalate it or just run away, rather than get in a physical conflict. She knew Rex had learnt to fight over the years from everything he'd told her about his past. But she'd never considered that he would actually _ want _ to see other people fighting. It was just so different from what she knew. Plus the people here weren't exactly friendly. She could easily imagine them getting into fights with each other over any little thing, and there were so many people here that if Rex got caught up in a fight, he'd be in a very dangerous situation that he might not be able to get away from. She didn't even want to think about what she'd do if Rex got hurt… Or worse...

“C’MON! LET’S SEE SOME _ CARNAGE!” _

Lucy's head snapped to her side as she was torn from her thoughts by a familiar voice.

“...Ultrakatty!?”

Ultrakatty's face changed from a manic grin to a surprised but happy smile as she spotted Lucy.

“Oh! Hey Wyldstyle! What are you doing here? I didn’t know you knew about this place!”

She walked over to the large, red and yellow cat and stood next to her in front of some empty seats.

“I didn’t. Actually I followed Rex here.”

“You followed Rex? Why?” Ultrakatty said, frowning.

“Well, I noticed him sneaking out a few nights this past month and I was worried about him. He usually tells me if he’s going somewhere. I mean, I don’t need to know where he is 24/7, I’m not some control freak or something! I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t doing anything…” 

_ "Dangerous… Illegal… _ <strike> _ Reality ending _ </strike> _ …" _ She thought. 

“Anything he could get in trouble for.”

Ultrakatty smiled and perked up.

“Well no worries there. All this is perfectly legal. Besides, there’s no harm in him just watching some fights.”

Lucy wasn't so sure about that, but agreed anyway.

“I suppose not...”

“So where is he anyway?” She asked, glancing around and behind Lucy curiously.

“I don’t know. I lost him just before I parked and made my way in. I haven’t been able to spot him anywhere.”

Just then, the speakers blared and the announcer started talking.

_ "Ladies and gentlemen! ARE YOU READY FOR CARNAGE?!" _

"** _YEAH!!!_ ** _ " _ Ultrakatty roared.

_ "Before the main event begins, we have a special treat for you tonight! The 6-Bolt Bandits will be facing off against tonight's semi finalist challenger in a bit of _ ** _friendly_ ** _ competition!" _

One of the large rusted gates shrieked open, and six cowboy-looking robots ran out hollering and brandishing their weapons. A couple had clubs, another two had whips, one had a lasso, and the last one had a high velocity bean bag gun. They dispersed around the arena pit and waved to the cheering crowd. 

Ultrakatty whooped and wagged her tail in anticipation. Lucy looked away from the robots and tried to get Ultrakatty's attention.

"Hey! Do you think you could help me find Rex?"

She looked over Lucy's shoulder, her focus entirely on the robots parading around the arena.

"Yeah, yeah, sure! In a minute. When this fight's over!"

Lucy stood right in front of her, waving her arms at her.

"Ultrakatty, please! I just need to find Rex and know if he's ok."

Ultrakatty looked down at her, obviously torn, but smiled and put a large paw on her shoulder.

"Okay, I'll help. But just please let me see this guy's entrance! Then I'll help you find him, I promise."

Realising that was as good as she was going to get, Lucy and Ultrakatty turned their attention back to the arena, just as the announcer started talking again.

_"And here he is! The Man you've all been waiting for! He's the new upcoming fighter who's been smashing his way up the rankings._ **_GIVE IT UP FOR...!"_**

Smoke billowed out from another gate as it rose. The crowd rapidly stomped their feet in anticipation. Then, all of a sudden, a man came running through the smoke, wisps of it following behind him. He leapt high into the air, pulling back his fist, before slamming it into the ground and landing with a hard thud. The shockwave sent from his impact made a crater in the ground and sent sand flying all around. The crowd stomped and slapped their seats faster and faster, as he rose to his full height. He looked up and all around at them. Smiling confidently, he thrust his fist into the air and yelled enthusiastically.

_ "DAAAAAANNNNNGEEEEER FIST!" _ The announcer concluded.

The crowd erupted in cheers and thunderous applause as 'Danger Fist' waved to them. Even Ultrakatty roared and jumped on the spot with excitement. Lucy however looked at him in shock.

"Woo! Ok Wyldstyle, let's go find Rex!" Ultrakatty said after calming down a bit. But Lucy just kept on staring ahead.

"Found him."

Ultrakatty looked around confused.

"What? Where?" 

She pointed forward. 

"'Danger Fist' _ is _ Rex."

Ultrakatty was taken aback. They both looked at him. He wore his old, torn, black shirt and his dark blue boots and gloves. He had spiked knee pads and shoulder pads that were secured by an X shaped harness around his torso. There were bright green stripes down the side of his blue trousers, as well as on his belt and harness. His hair had been slicked back and pulled into a small ponytail at the back of his head, a few short strands poking out here and there. His blue and orange highlights were also very visible on top of his head. He'd also painted a number of dark blue and green stripes on his arms, which were almost reminiscent of his raptors' stripes, as well as a line of blue and green under each of his eyes. 

_ "Oooooohhh… _" Ultrakatty realised.

"Oh yeah, it is him, isn't it?"

Lucy looked at her incredulously.

"How the hell did you _ not _ know it was him??? I mean, Danger _ Fist _ , Danger- _ vest? _ Plus all that bright green?! And who else would have two stripes of orange and blue in the front of their hair like that??!"

Ultrakatty flattened her ears back and rubbed one paw over the other as she looked away sheepishly. 

"Well I've never really paid much attention to his look before! I was too caught up with the fighting!"

Horror dawned on Lucy's face as she turned back to look at the arena. Rex and the robots had stopped waving and were gearing up for battle.

_ The fighting! _

Rex was about to fight a 1 Vs 6 battle armed with just his fists, whilst they had a variety of weapons at their disposal. 

…

_ WHAT ON EARTH WAS HE THINKING?!?! _

"Ultrakatty! We have to get down there and stop them!" She said, already starting to climb out of her seat and walk towards the stairs. Ultrakatty reached out a paw and stopped her in her tracks.

"WOAH! Wyldstyle you can't just stop the fight!"

She turned back to her and wrenched her arm from her paw.

"And why not?! It's totally unfair! He could get hurt!"

"Unfair for the robots maybe." Ultrakatty scoffed.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" She snapped, resting her hands on her hips grumpily.

"Wyldstyle, hasn't Rex told you some stories about fights he's been in? Times he's fought space pirates and mercenaries and stuff?"

Lucy crossed her arms as she thought about it. 

"Well yeah, he has. But you know how he is! He does like to big himself up and exaggerate at times. Who knows how well he can really handle himself, and how much his cockyness can get him into trouble! And besides that, there are _ six of them! _He could easily get overwhelmed and injured."

Ultrakatty put both her front paws on Lucy's shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

"Look, you have every reason to worry about that. But you don't need to! I've seen _ 'Danger Fist' _ fight a bunch of times. He's good! Like- _ really good _ at fighting! Trust me, he can handle this no sweat!"

She looked over to the pit. The six robots were lined up in a semi circle as Rex stood opposite them, his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

She tried to think about what Ultrakatty had said. Tried to focus on the fact that Rex apparently was an actual competent fighter. But that wasn't enough to quell the rising fear within her. She'd never _ seen _ him fight before. All she could think of was how he'd been during the apocalypse. He'd been so sweet, and vulnerable, and so unwilling to fight _ anything _ . He'd lacked any killer instinct _ at all. _ She'd done her best to protect him, and had been lucky enough to succeed for most of it, but she'd always worried she'd fail and that he'd get hurt, and she'd lose him. Now he was putting himself in danger on purpose. He was about to get into a fight, and she was just supposed to let it happen and watch?

The speakers crackled with static as the announcer started shouting through them again.

_"Let's get ready to_ **_RUUUUMMMMMMBLLLLEEEE!!!"_**

The rest of the crowd cheered and started counting down with the announcer.

_ " _ ** _5... 4… 3… 2... 1!!!_ ** _ " _

Lucy's heart leapt to her throat the moment the counting stopped and a klaxon blared. 

Three robots ran straight towards Rex, their weapons poised at the ready. He cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders as he waited for them to get closer. When one of the club wielding robots was just a few feet away, he leapt into action. He dashed towards it, ducking just in time to avoid a blow to the head as the robot swung its club. He got around behind it, giving it a hard kick in the back of its knee. Swiftly, it toppled forward, giving Rex a perfect opening. He grabbed the robot by its collar and belt, hauling it up in the air so he could spin round with it, before using the momentum to fling it right into another incoming one. They landed in a heap, but the third was still coming at him.

It raised and pulled back its whip, before thrusting it forward at Rex, who was able to dodge out the way and then run at the robot. He grabbed it's extended arm and turned himself to face away from it, before using all his strength to fling the robot over his shoulder and make it crash into the ground in front of him. Rex stood above the robot and slammed his foot into its chest, causing its torso to smash wide open and send bolts and bits of scrap flying everywhere. The red lights of its eyes faded as it powered down. 

But that still left three more yet to attack, and two more that were still recovering.

He dashed towards the group of three, narrowly dodging a bean bag to the face as the lead robot fired at him.

He tackled the second club wielding robot to the ground and wrenched its club from its hands. Then, he lifted it high into the air before slamming the club down into the robot's head, crushing it instantly. The crowd started cheering, but their tune suddenly changed to boos as Rex was hit in the back of the head with a bean bag. The speed of its impact shocked him enough to drop the club and lurch forward. Before he could recover, another hit him in the side of the head, as two more smashed into his back right after. 

Lucy was on the edge of her seat as she watched. He'd been doing so well up until that point, a lot better than she'd expected in fact, but now she was worrying again. He'd offlined two of them, but he was still outnumbered. She wished the fight would be over so Rex would be safe, and so she could give him a right bollocking for being such a reckless twat and making her worry so much.

Rex gritted his teeth and growled with anger as he ducked, avoiding another hit by a bean bag, and turned to face the lead robot. He rolled forward, before jumping up and leaping into a sprint. His right fist was pulled back, poised to strike, as he neared the robot. The robot shot another bag at close range into his left cheekbone, right below his eye. Rex was unphased despite the pain (which would no doubt give him a serious shiner later), as his anger at being hit drove him on. When he was close enough, he slammed his fist forward with all his power, channeling his anger into a devastating Master Breaker punch. Metal crumpled and tore apart under the impact as the robot shattered to pieces, its gun clattering to the ground. 

Lucy was in awe. She’d heard Rex call himself a _ ‘Master Breaker’ _ before, but she’d never imagined he could do something like _ that _ with the skill. He’d destroyed a robot with a single blow! She couldn’t help but think how a skill like that would have been really handy during the apocalypse... 

Suddenly there was a crack that echoed through the air, and Rex jumped back in shock. A robot with a whip had taken advantage of Rex being distracted, and used the moment to attack. Rex looked down at his right arm to see he now had a long cut along his bicep that was quickly starting to bleed. The robot attempted to strike again, but Rex was ready for it this time. He managed to catch the whip using his gloved hand before it could hit him. He then pulled it forward, and the robot was dragged towards him through the sand as it kept a hold of its whip. With it dazed on the ground below him, he was able to make short work of it with a quick Master Breaker stomp. 

That meant there were just two robots left. The ones he’d thrown into each other and dazed earlier. 

They’d now recovered and were heading towards him. 

The one with the club was closest to him, so he decided to take it down first. 

It swung at him and he lifted his right arm up to block the blow, simultaneously using his left hand to grab it by its shirt collar and lift it up in the air. He smacked the club out of the confused robot’s hand and pulled back his fist, aiming it straight at the robot’s head. 

Just as he was about to strike, the other robot slung a lasso around his arm and pulled it back. Rex turned to angrily glare at the robot, before grabbing onto the rope and yanking the robot with all his strength to fling it across the arena and crash head first into the concrete wall. It's head cracked on impact and split open, sending sparks of electricity flying as it spluttered and powered down. 

Rex then turned his attention back to the robot he was currently holding in his left hand. It shivered in fear as Rex looked at it with a cold, hard stare. Immediately the light from it's optics faded, as it powered itself down and slumped in defeat. 

Rex released it from his grip and let it fall to the floor in front of him. The crowd cheered and yelled at Rex as he stood among the broken bodies of the robots, which several arena workers were now quickly taking away to the repair ward. He grinned under all the crowd's attention and flattery, waving to them and laughing happily.

_ "Give the Bandits a hand folks! They put up a good fight, but it seems nothing can beat Danger Fist!" _

Lucy sighed and fell back to sit in her seat.

"Phew! At least it's over now." She breathlessly breathed out.

_ "But wait! It's not over yet folks!" _

"Oh you have_ got to be kidding me!" _ She shouted, snapping up to attention as she looked back down into the pit. 

The announcer continued.

_ "Because now it's time for the main event! The fight you've all been waiting for! The semi final of The Pit Bash Bout! The winner of which will move on to the final in two weeks time, and have a chance at becoming the grand champion!!!" _

Rex turned to face one of the gates. He casually wiped some of the blood off his arm from where it had been cut. Thankfully it hadn’t been too deep, so it had mostly stopped bleeding by now. He rolled his shoulders and loosened his joints as he prepared for the next fight.

_ "So I hope you're ready for Danger Fist Vs…" _

The announcer paused. Smoke billowed through the gate as it slowly rose open. The crowd was on the edge of their seats in anticipation. 

_ "HYDRA-TRON!!!" _

A giant, 15 foot tall, dragon-like robot burst through the gate. It had three heads, each with rows and rows of dagger-like fangs and two big, pointed horns that jutted out the top of each head. Sharp spikes ran down the back of its necks and down its back and tail. It had a round body with four strong arms, each ending clawed paws. It let out a roar so loud it reverberated throughout the arena and rattled the rickety metallic seating. 

Lucy almost had a heart attack at the sight of it.

But as the crowd screamed and cheered, Rex just grinned. He shook his hands to loosen them, before balling them into fists and getting ready to run.

_ "FIGHT!" _ The announcer shouted.

Lucy could not believe what was happening. Her brain had stopped processing everything the moment the giant robot can come through the gate. Rex was going to _fight it!_ _HIM! _One man, alone, against something that rivaled the ferocity of the Duplo invaders!

He had to be absolutely insane. 

That was the only explanation she could think of. 

He was utterly, _ utterly _insane. 

Rex ran at the giant hydra robot, laughing with excitement, as it stared at him. 

As he neared it, it started to attack. In quick succession, each of the heads darted down and tried to hit him. But Rex was too quick, too pumped up and excited, so he was able to nimbly dodge each of them just in the nick of time. 

The hydra’s left head was stuck in the sand. It wiggled and tried to pull itself free, but was struggling. Rex took advantage of that. He ran at it and used his forward momentum to land a devastating kick that cracked the metal and dislocated one side of its jaw. 

The impact jostled its head enough to free it, and as it started to rise, Rex jumped onto it, holding tightly onto the sharp spines sticking out its neck. He clambered over to the other side and started hitting the other side of its head, focusing on taking out the joining bolt on its jaw hinge. 

A particularly strong punch finally destroyed the jaw and damaged the head enough to take it out. It started sparking and jerking as oil leaked from its mouth. Then, the middle head tried to jerk forward and grab Rex off of its malfunctioning left head. Rex jumped up on top of it as it came towards him, slamming his foot down on top of it as he landed.

The whole robot jerked to the side, and Rex hung on tight to one of the middle head’s horns as it continued to thrash around. 

With a spluttering shriek, the left head powered down and detached itself from the rest of the body at the base of its neck. 

The remaining two heads roared with anger as it saw the power drain from its fallen part. 

But again, this gave Rex an opportunity to continue his attack that he was determined to take advantage of. 

He stood up on the middle head and started rapidly punching, kicking and beating it as hard as he could. 

But then, as he was punching at the base of the middle head's skull, the other remaining head lunged at him with its fangs bared. He noticed it a second too late. He tried to stand and back away, but it was already too close. It bit onto his right leg and yanked him off its middle head. 

For a moment, he was dangling upside down 15 feet in the air. The hydra's teeth dug into him and pierced through his protective clothing. He could feel blood slowly trickle from the wounds and down his leg, but he struggled on, trying his hardest to pull himself up and free his leg. The hydra however, had other plans. It swung its head back in a fluid motion and then lunged forward, letting Rex go partway through to send him flying across the arena. 

It wasn't a smooth landing. He rolled end over end through the sand. Totally unable to slow his momentum. Eventually though, he came to a stop. 

He laid there for a moment, utterly still. The crowd around him was silent. Lucy and Ultrakatty held their breath.

With a grunt of effort, he shoved a hand underneath him and started lifting himself up. Using his left leg to hold most of his weight, he rose to his full height and glared determinedly at the Hyra-tron. The crowd cheered in triumph and encouraged him on. Ultrakatty sighed with relief, but fear still had a firm hold on Lucy's heart. Rex limped forward towards the hydra. Dark stains began to blossom on his trouser leg, but he kept going. He picked up the pace, turning his jog into a run as he powered through the pain. 

Once he reached the hydra, he skidded underneath its body, narrowly dodging its most functional head as the damaged middle one spluttered and glitched. This time, instead of going for the heads again, he tried a different approach. He grabbed onto the underside of its belly and started punching upwards. The metal creaked and warped under his blows, until finally he'd broken through. One of the heads figured out what he was up to and tried to reach under for him, but it was too big and not articulated enough to do so. Rex reached inside and started pulling at wires and yanking out components; anything he could get his hands on. The hydra started bucking and jumping wildly trying to shake him off, but he hung on tight. When that didn't work for it, it tried rolling. 

Rex was quick. He let go and dropped down as the hydra rolled away from him. Oil started to leak from the hole he'd made and the sand became stained black. When it stopped, its heads lolled from side to side as its movements got increasingly jerky and erratic. Rex ran over and decided to finish the job on the middle head. It was already moving slow and hanging on by a thread, so he quickly managed to sever its connection in just a few punches.

There was just one head left online now. And it was angry. 

It was determined to do its best not to lose to such a tiny opponent, and did everything it could to stay in the fight.

It roared, it thrashed, it tried to swing its head and knock him off, but none of it worked. 

Rex simply hung on and waited, letting all the previous damage he’d inflicted do the work for him. Oil gushed out of the holes he’d made and soon so much of it had spilled out, that the hydra was barely able to function and keep itself standing.

The last functioning head jerked and thrashed violently as damage to its systems became too great, and caused it to lose control. It swayed erratically as it staggered around the arena, before it finally succumbed to its injuries and collapsed to the ground.

The light faded from its eyes as the last of its power drained out.

Rex stood atop it and punched his fist into the air, as the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

Lucy stared at him. Not in shock, or anger, or confusion, she just stared blankly. 

She wanted to feel relieved the fight was over, happy that Rex was safe, amazed at how well he’d fought, angry at him for putting himself in such pointless danger and not telling her about it, and so much more.

But she couldn’t feel any one of those. Not when they were warring inside her all at once. So she just sat, and she stared.

_ “Unbelievable!!! Ladies and Gentlemen! Give it up for our finalist! He’s beaten the odds tonight, but can he carry his luck to the final, and become the first ever human Grand Champion?!?! Find out in two weeks time at The Pit Bash Bout final! Better order those tickets now, ‘cause they’re selling out like hot-cakes!!!” _

Rex jumped down off the hydra and started heading towards one of the gates as he kept waving at the audience. The crowd started chanting his name louder and louder. He beamed widely at them as he limped off through the gate. Only once he was gone, did the crowd stop chanting, but they kept on cheering and hollering with excitement for a while after.

With Rex gone from sight, Lucy was knocked out of her stupor. She looked over to Ultrakatty in confusion.

"Wait, where's he going now?"

She shrugged.

"Probably to the infirmary. All the fighters have to go there after they finish a fight for a check up and to tend to any wounds they get."

Lucy stared back at the gateway Rex had disappeared down silently for a moment, before she piped up again. 

"Think we can get in there?" She asked.

\-----

Rex was sat leaning back on a bed in the infirmary, having the wound in his leg cleaned by a nurse. The stuff he was using on Rex’s leg stung a fair bit, but he didn’t mind much. He knew it was necessary to keep his leg from getting infected and to help it heal faster. Plus he got to wind down and relax after all the adrenaline pumping excitement from the fight, before he had to head home. He still had to figure out how to hide the increasingly aching bruise on his left cheek though. 

But then, all of a sudden, Rex and the nurse heard a commotion coming from just outside.

_ "Hey! What do you think you're doing?! You can't come in here!" _ One of the security guards shouted.

Rex looked at the nurse in confusion and he shrugged back at him. But then they heard shouting and crashing getting louder right against the door. The nurse got nervous and tensed up, but Rex just balled his right hand into a fist, ready to defend himself and the nurse from any rowdy fans looking for trouble. 

_ "Hey! Get back here!" _ A different guard shouted.

Then the doors burst open, revealing the last two people Rex had expected to see.

"Radical Emmet Xtreme, Machete Ninja Star Dangervest, Brickowski!!! Have you lost your _ goddamned mind?!!!" _ Lucy angrily shouted. Ultrakatty popped up over her shoulder and waved a paw.

"Hey Rex!"

Rex looked between the both of them utterly shocked about how they were here, and also by the fact that Lucy had used his full name.

"Lucy!? Ultrakatty!?"

The two guards from outside suddenly burst in and roughly grabbed Ultrakatty and Lucy by the shoulders. The four of them started struggling, but Rex quickly interjected before things could escalate. 

"Hey wait! Don't worry, it's cool! They're my friends! You can let them in."

The guards let go and turned away, looking very annoyed and sorry for themselves, before shutting the doors behind them. The nurse looked at Rex’s very peculiar friends but decided to shrug it off and continue his work on Rex’s leg.

"So what are you guys doing here anyway?" Rex asked. 

_ "Us? _ What are _ you _ doing?!" Lucy hysterically shouted. 

Rex glanced down at his leg before looking back at Lucy.

"I'd think that would be obvious?"

Ultrakatty chuckled.

"Well I was here just to watch the fight, then Wyldstyle ran into me! It's funny, 'cause I didn't recognise you in that outfit, but she spotted you right away! And I just gotta say, you _killed_ _it_ out there tonight!!"

"Thanks Ultrakatty, that's nice of you to say." He said as he smiled at her. It made sense to him that Ultrakatty might be into a bit of gladiatorial combat. It was certainly a good mix of fun excitement and rage filled destruction he could have seen her get into back during the apocalypse, and just keep it up because it was enjoyable. 

But what didn’t make sense to him, was why Lucy would have come. Especially since it seemed she hadn’t seen him fight or been here before. 

"But what about you Luce? Didn't know you were into arena fighting."

"I'm not really. Actually…"

She hesitated as he looked at her. 

"I kinda followed you…"

"You followed me?" he asked, scrunching his face in confusion. He stopped and relaxed it almost immediately though, when he felt a twinge of pain from his bruised cheek. 

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't in any trouble, or doing something that could get you hurt…"

She looked down at his leg sadly as the nurse finished cleaning the wound and started bandaging it up. He noticed her worry immediately and reached out to hold her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze of reassurance. 

"Hey… Don't worry about this, Luce. The Doc said I'm gonna be perfectly fine with a bit of rest." He said softly. 

"But Rex! You were fighting a giant robot! It could have easily bitten your leg off!” She shouted as she gestured wildly. 

"Actually Hyrda-tron doesn't have enough power in its jaw actuators to do that. It's all part of its 'non-lethal' combat design." 

She sighed exasperatedly, trying to get across her worries into his somehow oblivious mind. 

"My point is, you could have gotten gravely injured and I wouldn't have had a clue about it! I mean, what would I do if you had di-!" She stopped herself mid sentence upon seeing his shocked face, letting the unspoken word hang in the air. There was a terse silence between them. 

"I… I'm sorry I worried you."

His face showed his hurt. She looked back at him with glistening eyes as she squeezed his hand tighter.

"Just… _ What were you thinking _ Rex?"

He paused, looking away from her.

"I wasn't really, I guess…"

He thought about what she’d said. What she’d asked. She was right. It had never occurred to him what would have happened if he’d gotten seriously injured. The Pits (ever since the apocalypse had ended anyway) always had non-lethal combat when it came to their non-robot fighters, but that didn’t guarantee anyone’s safety. There was always the possibility of something going wrong. He’d never thought about how much something like that would bother Lucy.

"I just…"

How could he explain himself? How could he justify not considering a worse case scenario, or Lucy’s feelings? 

"I just came across this place a while ago on my way to… somewhere else in the desert. And I thought I'd give it a go. Thought it might be fun to do a little sparing as I hadn't done it in a while. I could sharpen up my fighting skills again, you know? But then I actually ended up winning! I got given some prizes and the crowd seemed to like me, so I got invited back the next week to start competing in the tournament."

"I never intended to take this thing as far as I have, but I was just having so much fun doing it. I could just unwind, turn off my mind from heavy stuff for a bit and just punch some things. Each fight was a challenge of wits and skill, that just felt satisfying to beat!” He said, smiling as he accentuated his words with a few mock punches through the air. But as he looked at Lucy, he realised she was still frowning with concern.

"Don't get me wrong, I love how my life is right now. It's great living with you and chilling out with my friends and everything. But I also find fighting here fun. I got really used to fighting and master breaking and stuff over the years, so it was nice to do something like that again where nobody gets seriously hurt, or arrested or anything."

She looked at him with a small understanding smile, but he could tell she still wasn’t happy. And it was then he realised she never would be when he still put himself in danger.

"But… I get that this has its risks. So if you want me to stop fighting, then I will… For you."

She was surprised, but smiled at him lovingly. Ultrakatty however, gasped in shock.

"But Rex! You have a shot at being the Grand Champion! You really want to give up now?!"

"Yeah, I do. I don't want to do anything that makes Lucy uncomfortable.” 

He looked determined when he said it, but Lucy could tell he was disappointed. She remembered how he had laughed and smiled as he’d galavanted around the arena. How enthusiastic the crowd had been and how he’d basked in their admiration. He really did love doing this. She still couldn’t quite get her head around why, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she knew he loved it, and it was important to him. And despite all that, he was still willing to give it up… Just to make her happy...

"Rex, that's not fair on you. Maybe all this does worry me, but Ultrakatty was right, you _ can _ handle yourself. You were really good at fighting. And if this makes you happy, then I want you to keep on doing it. I can learn to trust that you know what you're doing."

He smiled at her warmly and gave her hand a tight squeeze in thanks.

Then the nurse spoke up and caught their attention.

"Mr Danger Fist? Your wounds are all patched up. You're free to go whenever you like."

"Thanks." 

The nurse packed up his things and headed off somewhere else in the infirmary. Rex looked back to Lucy and put on his cheeky grin.

"What do ya say we get outta here, huh?"

"Sure. Let's go home." She said softly.

Rex held out his other hand and Lucy took it in hers. He carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed and let his feet fall on the floor. She gently pulled him forward and helped to stabilise him as he stood up. Equally dispersing his weight on both his legs caused his injured right one to wobble from the strain, so leaned more on his left one. As Ultrakatty grabbed Rex's duffel bag in her mouth, Lucy moved to his side and let him rest an arm over her shoulders so she could help take some of the pressure off as they walked. 

Ultrakatty followed behind them as they made their way out of the infirmary and through the secluded VIP section of the arena. They came out of a private back exit into a small car park just for staff and gladiators. They walked up to Rex's bike as he then leant up against it and fished out his recently made key from his bag. 

"You're not planning on driving that home are you?" Lucy asked. Rex shrugged as his hand finally caught his keys.

"That was the plan. Why?"

She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

"And how exactly do you expect to do that without your right leg?" 

"Eh! It'll be fine! All it does is work the back break anyw- HEY!" 

Lucy quickly snatched his keys out of his hands and held them an arms length away from him. 

"I don't think so, _ Danger Fist. _ I'm not gonna let you do anything else reckless tonight, so _ I'll _ be driving you home." 

Crossing his arms, he quizzically raised an eyebrow at her. 

"Really? And what about your bike? How's that gonna get home?"

"I can take it with me!" Ultrakatty suggested.

They both turned to her confused.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'll carry it home and bring it over to yours tomorrow or something." 

Lucy smiled at her as Rex sighed exasperatedly. 

"Thanks Ultrakatty."

"No problem! Have a good night guys!" Ultrakatty said as she started trotting off towards the main car park. Lucy turned to Rex and grinned.

"So! Let's get going babe."

He paused briefly at that with a small smile on his face, but then he shrugged and, after stowing his duffel bag, made to sit on the bike's saddle. Lucy gave him a bit of help as he hooked his right leg over it and kept him steady as he positioned himself. She then jumped up on the seat herself in front of him. Shoving the key into the slot, she started up the bike and revved it to life. The engine purred happily as she adjusted the mirrors to her liking. Rex slid a little closer to her back and wrapped his arms around her waist. Mostly it was just to keep him secure and have something to hold onto, but he partly did it just because it meant he could hold her close.

They set off and drove out the arena, heading across the desert and back around the edge of town. The wind whipped Lucy’s hair as she drove his bike with pure confidence and ease. His cheeks flushed as he remembered the very first time he’d ridden with her on a bike. That very first day they’d met all those years ago. He’d thought she was the coolest person he’d ever met. 

And as it turned out, she still was. 

He hugged her back tighter as he smiled. And he couldn’t help but think how lucky he was to have someone as cool as her care about him so much. He was glad she was going to let him keep fighting at The Pits, but now he knew she was worried about him getting hurt, he was sure to at least be more careful in the future. And if the danger heated up too much? Then he’d quit. Simple as that. 

Yeah he liked the thrill the fighting gave him, and it was something that was still important to him, but it paled in comparison to how important she was to him. 

And it warmed his heart to know that he was just as important to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like the pieces of art that came with this one! That first one was by me, and the other two amazing ones were by Piece-of-resistance!!!!! Please go check them out along with all her other fantastic art on Tumblr!!! :3 She's a massive help to me writing this story and deserves all your love too! ❤💖  
Find the links to her two pieces here:  
https://piece-of-resistance.tumblr.com/post/187709373443/and-youre-standing-on-the-edge-face-up-cause  
https://piece-of-resistance.tumblr.com/post/187751313605/before-i-forget-heres-the-drawing-i-made-a-while
> 
> EDIT: Now this chapter has yet another super cool piece of art by ghostarwarrior!!! (on Tumblr and Instagram :D ) Which you can find here:  
https://ghostarwarrior.tumblr.com/post/187763163833/malisonquill-the-man-the-legend-the-overall
> 
> This chapter was inspired by something in the video game. Though I did expand on it a lot xD There's a little arena thing with a side quest to destroy some duplos or robots or something. And I thought I'd use it, so I had an excuse to write Rex fighting. Because he deserves a chance to shine and be a badass, even though he lives in a really peaceful world.
> 
> Also from this chapter onwards, the chapters start being even more connected and more one after the other, following on from each other and stuff. 
> 
> And I think you'll all find the next one interesting... I think it's about time someone finally met a certain alien queen... ;)


	10. An Audience With The Queen

Rex parked up his bike and walked into the Syspocalypstar Space Center. He walked through reception, occasionally limping slightly from his sore leg, and made his way to the  _ 'Department of Interstellar Transport' _ area of the building. 

When he got there, there was a big open room full of various different teleporters to places all over the galaxy. Most of them were to the Systar System though. Which just so happened to be were Rex was headed today.

He made his way through bustling crowds of people as he searched for the specific teleport he wanted. Luckily when he found it, there wasn't a line at all.

There was an operator and two guards standing beside the portal, both of which were rather large and clad in white Systarian armour, with two large lollipop-like staffs. Rex casually walked up to the operator, totally unintimidated by the guards, and pulled out a travel pass Batman had gotten for him. The operator inspected it before running it through an authenticating scanner. The machine beeped green and he handed it back to Rex, satisfied. He pressed a few buttons, double checking the coordinates were correct and locked in, before flipping a final switch and powering the portal to life.

Once it was stable, a light above turned green and Rex walked through. 

Bright pastel rainbow colours swirled around him as he walked through the vortex, heading towards the pure white archway at the end.

As Rex walked, he thought about where he was heading. 

  
  


Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi had sent him a rather official looking, yet sparkly and glitter covered invitation in the post. Apparently she really wanted to meet him. He wasn't quite sure why. And to be honest, he was even more unsure why he'd said yes.

For ages he'd thought Watevra and  _ that monster _ had brainwashed his friends into twisted, preppy versions of themselves. And that had made them purposefully leave him behind because they no longer cared about him. But he'd been wrong. They'd just become happier in a place where they could all be themselves and live without the constant threat of apocalyptic annihilation. And the only reason they'd moved on was because he'd been gone so long, and they'd accepted the perfectly believable fact he probably wasn't coming back. They just did what anyone with a loss eventually did; they kept on living.

And well, that was something he was slowly getting more and more ok with.

So yeah. Watevra apparently wasn't as bad as he'd thought for so long. His friends seemed to genuinely like her, and she seemed fair and caring to her subjects. Unikitty and Batman in particular had talked about her a number of times with a lot of fondness. Plus Batman  _ was _ married to her, and he certainly knew a good guy from a bad guy, so she must be a good person. 

Though he wasn't exactly sure why the others had been so excited to hear that  _ he _ in particular was going to be meeting her today. He got the feeling there was something more to it that they were hiding, than him just finally meeting another friend of theirs… But, he guessed he'd find out soon enough.

  
  


Rex walked out of the teleport vortex and found himself on a platform floating in space separate from a gigantic castle spaceship. He looked up at it, thoroughly impressed by its intricacy and design. As he walked forward to the edge of the platform, it suddenly lit up. He then heard a tinkling sound, and a bright yellow star with wide, adorable eyes shot out from below the platform and hovered in front of him.

“HELLO!” It shouted in a young, excited voice.

Rex jerked back from it in surprise, raising an arm to protect and defend himself if necessary. But it seemed the star didn’t notice his reaction.

“I’m the palace greeter! What’s brought you here today?” It cheerfully announced. Rex slowly lowered his arm and looked at the overly enthusiastic thing in confusion.

“...The Queen wanted to meet me.” 

The star smiled.

“Can you tell me your name please?”

“Rex Brickowski.” He answered as he crossed his arms. The star twinkled and lit up with excitement. 

“Oh yay! That’s great! The Queen’s been waiting for you! Please, head right on in! Ice Cream Cone should be just inside the entrance to take you to the throne room.”

The star floated out of the way to Rex's side. Then, a blocky bridge extended from the castle towards the platform. As Rex started to walk across it, music began playing seemingly from nowhere. A number of happy friendly stars appeared and floated along both sides of the bridge, before they broke into song.

_ "Weeeeelllllllllcome! To the Systar System! (To the Systar System!) A land where it's not frowned upon, to randomly break into song, for no apparent reason, at all!!" _

They bobbed and floated happily as they twirled and sang. 

Rex really didn’t know what to think of them. On the one hand, they were absolutely adorable and friendly, but on the other, there was something about them that almost creeped him out and made him not want to trust them. 

Maybe it was the fact that they sounded too similar to that one heart bomb...

But after debating it, he decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. He’d assume they were as friendly as they acted, but there was no way in hell he’d totally trust them. 

  
  


He walked into a grand entryway and sure enough, waiting for him at the bottom of a long staircase, was the Queen's right hand man, Ice Cream Cone. 

"Ah. Mr Brickowski. So glad you could make it. Please follow me, her majesty awaits your arrival in the throne room."

Ice Cream Cone turned and walked up the stairs. Rex followed behind him silently, admiring the bright decor and huge scale of the palace. 

When they reached a set of towering double doors Ice Cream Cone halted, letting the two guards standing there open the doors for them. The room was dark as they walked in, and as the doors shut behind them, Rex started to feel antsy. Suddenly though, a fanfare started playing and several spotlights lit up and pointed to a big hole in the middle of the floor. Ice Cream Cone stopped beside it and gestured dramatically.

"Presenting, her majesty, the illustrious, the iridescent, the generous, Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi! Empress of the Systar System! And her royal consort, Batman!"

A platform slowly raised up from below as the room got brighter and brighter. The spotlights followed the platform upwards as the fanfare built up. Once it was towering above him, Rex finally saw her, the shapeshifting alien queen of the Systar System: Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi.

She'd taken the form of a horse and stood beside Batman striking a dramatic pose. The fanfare came to an end and the rest of the lights in the room lit up and brightened the place. Watevra opened her eyes and gasped with a smile as she looked down at Rex. 

"You came!" She excitedly exclaimed. Ice Cream Cone cleared his throat and Watevra was reminded to regain her regal composure.

"I mean- I am most pleased to see you accepted my invitation, Mr Brickowski." She tried to keep a neutral regal expression on her face, but an excited smile kept tugging at the corners of her mouth, betraying her increasingly ecstatic attitude. 

Rex could obviously see she was very happy to see him, but he was still none the wiser as to why.

"Um… Well, I've heard so much about you. Batman's talked about you before. Thought it was time I finally met you face to face." Rex casually said, hooking his thumbs around his belt. 

The platform lowered down to ground level and Watevra and Batman hopped off it to stand in front of Rex. Watevra almost bounced on the spot with excitement, no longer bothering to contain her smile.

"I just can't believe I finally get to meet you Rex! You have  _ no idea _ how long I've waited to get to know you!"

He frowned at that. Surely she'd only know about him the little over two and a half months he'd been back in this timeline. That wasn't exactly a long time to want to get to know someone.

"Well, that's very… flattering. But I gotta say, I'm a little confused. Sure, I guess Bats and Unikitty have probably talked about me, but- just why did you want to meet me so badly?"

She took a quick knowing glance at Batman, who nodded at her, before looking back at Rex.

"Rex. You know I can shapeshift and change my form to whatever I like?" She said, as she morphed her almost gelatinous yet blocky form into various other shapes to emphasise her point. Rex looked at her, utterly confused as to where she was going with this.

"...Yeah?"

She paused in the form of a giant striped snake and curled around him as she looked him in the eye.

"Well have you ever seen my  _ original _ form?"

He thought about it and realised he hadn't. Back when he was in the other timeline, when other Watevra and Batman were getting married, he was too busy focusing on getting Emmet to master break the cake and get in position to rescue him to really notice what Watevra looked like. He thought he remembered hearing someone say she was going to change to her original form, but he only realised now that he hadn't actually seen it. It just hadn't been the most important thing on his mind at the time.

But now he was here, and she'd brought it up, he had to admit he was curious. He'd always assumed her true form was a shapeless blob or something. So to find out it might be something different was very intriguing. Even more so coupled with the fact it apparently had something to do with why she wanted to meet him.

"No, I haven't."

She slithered in front of him and smiled sweetly at him.

"Then how about I show you?" 

She started changing her form a lot slower than usual. Her colours fluxed and shimmered to yellows, pinks and purples. Slowly she arranged herself into a familiar shape, one that Rex thought he remembered from somewhere, but he couldn't quite place it yet. Then she started to slow down more and settled as she finalised her form. 

"Ta da!!!" She excitedly cheered.

Rex stared at her, utterly frozen in shock. He recognised her shape in an instant, but it was one he hadn't seen or thought of in so, so long.

_ "You… You're…" _ He could barely speak above a quiet whisper. He just couldn't comprehend what he was seeing.

Watevra grinned widely and nodded, waiting for him to continue.

_ "You're the heart I made…?" _ He whispered softly. She squealed in excitement and somehow smiled even wider.

"Yeah! I am!" 

He stared back at her, frozen in place.

He remembered making that heart as a symbol of peace and friendship to try and subdue the Duplo invaders. It hadn't seemed to work at the time. But it turned out they hadn't destroyed the heart out of malice. They'd taken it, and it had come alive. It became their queen. It became Watevra. The heart  _ he made _ had become  _ Watevra _ . 

_ He  _ ** _made_ ** _ Watevra. _

No wonder she had wanted to meet him.

She stared back at him earnestly with big hopeful eyes. 

"I just always wanted to meet you… We knew someone from Bricksburg made me, but it wasn't until I married Batsy that I found out it was you! He and all your other friends told me everything about you! Ever since then I wished I could know you. I wanted to thank you. What you did inspired our world. I, and all Systarians, and the whole Systar system itself exist because of you.  _ You _ started  _ everything!" _

Rex was speechless. 

He'd… He'd tried to destroy everything. He'd tried to destroy the Systarians, their whole world, their whole reality! They'd tormented Bricksburg, and him, and all his friends for years during the apocalypse. But then they'd changed and evolved into their complex society, and it was all because of Watevra. She'd sculpted the Systar System into a paradise and come up with a peaceful way to stop the fighting between their two worlds. Just like he'd tried to settle things peacefully with the invaders all those years ago. She'd come from him. From his old pacifist nature in a moment of pure bravery and compassion. 

He had made her, and she had caused everything else.

_ "I… started all this…?" _

She liked him. She wanted to  _ thank him.  _ After all he'd done?! He'd tried to destroy everything good she'd built up! Did she even know that? She must have! Batman surely would have told her. 

He was almost too scared to ask her, she seemed so happy with how things were going, but he had to. He had to know.

"You… You do know what I tried to do… right?"

Her smile went crooked as her colours briefly flickered to bluer shades.

"I… I do. But Batsy explained everything to me. I get why you tried to do what you did."

Rex looked away from her, still ashamed. Just because people understood his reasons behind his past actions, it didn't make what he did right. It didn't undo what he'd attempted. He didn't know how anyone could possibly ever overlook it all. He was guilty of a terrible crime. And that guilt stuck with him. He could have ruined everything, destroyed all the good of their world. But no one stayed mad at him. They all forgave him.  _ Why?  _

Watevra saw he was still solum, so she tried to explain herself. She wanted Rex to understand, to connect with him.

"But that doesn't matter to me. For a long while, before I met Batsy, I felt…"

She hesitated, not wanting to drop her façade that she had always been happy with her life, but she did anyway.

"...alone. I always imagined what the person who made me was like. What I would say to them if we ever met. What it would be like to be a real family with them. What it would be like to have a mother or a father, and be a real daughter…"

Her colours darkened to deep blues and purples as she spoke.

"But we were at war, so I could never find them. I could never find  _ you. _ So I stayed alone."

Rex stared at her in shocked awe. But she continued, getting even darker and sadder as she lost her hold on her form and drooped into a shapeless blob.

"Then I finally find out who you are, and I thought I could have all that, but you were… gone. And I finally had to accept the fact I'd never meet the person who gave me life."

Rex looked at her with concern and inched his way closer to her. Never in 1000 years would he have thought that Queen Watevra of all people would have been someone affected by his disappearance.

She smiled up at him as she noticed him get closer to her. She quickly shifted into a towering, fairly humanoid shape and gestured two arms widely at him.

"But then you came back! You're here! And I can finally meet you! And that-"

Rex looked a little shocked at her quick change in form and demeanour, so she lowered herself to be slightly shorter than him and shifted her colours to warmer hues.

"That's all that matters to me. I don't care about the past, that's behind all of us! I live in the now! And right now, you're here!"

She clasped her hands together and smiled at him warmly. 

He thought about everything for a moment. 

At least now he knew why she, and everyone else, could put the things he'd done behind them. They were just happy to have him back and alive at all. He wanted that to make him feel better. That fact was the reason he had a shot at redeeming himself at all. But in some ways it just made him feel more guilty. Even now he didn't know if he really deserved it. 

But as he looked at Watevra and saw her happy face, he realised maybe putting the past behind them was a good thing. Him just being alive and around made Watevra and all his friends so happy. And well, since he'd come back he'd certainly done way fewer morally ambiguous actions. He hadn't tried to destroy the universe again or anything. So maybe he did deserve their leniency and his second chance.

If they could all forgive him, then maybe he could forgive himself.

"Yeah. I guess I am here, aren't I?" He chuckled softly.

Watevra lit up with excitement and gasped.

"Oh!  _ DAD!" _ She shouted as she wrapped two large arms around him and scooped him up in a crushing hug.

It took all of Rex's willpower to not try and struggle or fight his way out of her tight hold. But as he looked down at her overjoyed expression, the exact choice of words she used hit him like a freight train.

"Wait-  ** _DAD?!"_ **

Batman laughed enthusiastically and Rex turned to look at him, a look of shock still frozen on his face.

"You did make her bro! Technically that  _ does _ make her your daughter!" 

Rex tensed immediately, before lifting his arms to gently shove Watevra away as he stepped back and shook his head.

"Wait, wait, wait,  _ wait,  _ ** _wait!_ ** Hold up!" 

She stood back from him as he ran a hand through his hair as he tried to compute the buttload of information he'd just taken on.

_ “Ok, _ so, not only do I  _ technically _ have a daughter, but my, uh...  _ best friend’s _ ex-boyfriend  ** _Batman _ ** is now my son-in-law??? I…  _ I need to lie down.” _

Rex pressed a hand to his forehead as he shook his head in disbelief. Behind him, Ice Cream Cone started to move to grab a nearby chair and Watevra moved closer to him with concern.

But just then, everyone was distracted as a set of doors opened and Robin came running through with a smile on his face, as Alfred followed and closed the doors behind them.

Watevra turned and immediately lit up at the sight of him. He ran up to her and jumped up into her waiting arms, laughing happily as she hugged him tight.

_ “Heeeyyy! _ There’s my little Robin! Where you been hiding yourself?”

Robin hugged her tightly too, before leaning back and smiling at her.

“I was practising some acrobatics in the gym! What’s going on in here?”

“I’m meeting my dad for the first time!” She cheerfully exclaimed.

Robin took notice of Rex standing utterly bemused in front of them and gasped dramatically. 

“I have another Grandpa!?!”

  
  


To say that Rex had been overloaded with too much to process in one go, would have been a gross understatement.

His brain had already been working overtime to process all his feelings, so this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

He stayed stock still. 

He looked at Robin, then Watevra, then Alfred, then Batman, before finally looking back at Robin and his excited little face.

  
  


His brain just couldn't think. It didn't know how to react.

But as it turned out, his body decided it wanted to react anyway.

Most other people in his situation would have probably fainted. But Rex was not most other people. So he reacted in a way that only Rex possibly could. 

He suddenly flashed brightly in an array of rainbow colours.

And popped out of their reality.

  
  
  


The room was silent for a moment as everyone stared at the spot Rex had disappeared from. But then, they all exploded into chaos.

"WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!" Watevra shouted, letting Robin drop to the floor as her hands shot up to the side of her face.

Batman immediately ran over to the spot and started frantically looking around for Rex.

"No, no, no,  _ no,  _ ** _no!_ ** Lucy's gonna  _ kill us!!!" _

  
  


\-----

  
  


Rex suddenly found himself in a very unexpected place. His vision was fuzzy and overly saturated for a moment, before adjusting to turn clear. He looked around. Everything was made of blocks and plastic and Watevra, Batman and the others were frozen (or maybe just moving really, really, slowly) as they looked in shock at where he'd been. 

With practised effort he bent his torso forward and looked down at himself. He had a blocky plastic body with tiny little claw hands, and legs and arms that locked in place and couldn't bend at the joints. 

_ "Ah." _ He thought.

So it seemed he was now in the realm of The Man Upstairs… But wait, how had he ended up here? Yeah he'd practised enough to come here whenever he wanted, but he hadn't actually thought about doing it. It had just happened!

He guessed it must have been some kind of reflex action from being in a stressful, shocking situation, but that did bother him somewhat. He didn't like the idea of not having total control of when he did or didn't come here.

But that was the least of his worries right now.

The more pressing issue was how to deal with the bombshell of confusion that had just dropped.

He looked at Watevra and all the others. Then he turned away, looked up at the ceiling, and yelled.

  
  


After doing that for a minute or so, he bent forward and pressed his little claw hands to the side of his head.

_ "What the fuck?  _ ** _What the fuck?_ ** _ WHAT THE FUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK????" _ He hysterically shouted.

He took in a deep breath and stood up straight, waving his arms as he calmed himself.

"It's ok. _This is_ _fine!_ So what if you technically have a kid that you ruined an alternate version of's wedding, and also tried to banish to a storage bin for all eternity? IT'S FINE! And so what if she's married to your friend who also happens to have a kid, so now you're _technically_ you're also a grandfather now too? It's totally normal! It's fine. tHiS iS FiNe!!! _IT'S FINE! IT'S- _**_OH FUCK THIS IS NOT FINE!!!_**_"_

He shoved his head into his head into his hands as best as he could and yelled again.

_ "WHAT EVEN IS MY LIFE???" _

He paused and tried taking another slow calming breath again, moving to sit down on the floor. His butt landed on the ground with a little clack sound and he sighed.

"It really is fine. No one is expecting me to accept this right away! Things like this take time. That's normal! I've done harder things than this before. I can do this! Probably… Just gotta take things one small step at a time, like Lucy said…"

He sighed again in relief, feeling far less agitated than before. All he had to do was take things slowly. Maybe he wasn't exactly comfortable with or ready to be invited to a Wa'Nabi family reunion or anything, but he could probably be friends with her at least. 

He stood up and turned around to the others. They were in different places to where they had been, and from their expressions he could tell they were really worried.

He decided he better get back quick, as they were probably wondering where he'd disappeared off to. 

So he focused as hard as he could, and popped back into their reality with a flash of light.

  
  


\-----

  
  


"Watev's! Why are you looking under the damn couch!? Why would he be there?!!"

Watevra let the couch she currently had lifted in the air drop to the floor, as she angrily huffed at Batman.

"I don't know!!! At least  _ I'm _ doing something useful!"

Batman scoffed at her and gestured with a device he had in his hands.

"I'm checking to see if there are any residual transporter signals with my Bat-raydar, how is that  _ not _ useful?!?!"

She was about to chastise him further, when all of a sudden there was a bright flash of rainbow light in the room. 

Rex appeared in about the exact same place he'd disappeared. His whole body shuddered as he loosened up his stiff arms and legs. He wiggled his fingers and rolled his shoulders about as he shook his head from side to side. Happily he ran his fingers through his hair, finding it soft and malleable instead of a single piece of hard plastic.

Batman immediately dropped his raydar and ran over to Rex, grabbing him by the shoulders to make sure he was really there.

"REX! What just happened?! Where did you go?!"

Rex looked rather sheepish at him.

"I kinda went to the realm of The Man Upstairs…"

Batman paused with a look of utter confusion before he was finally able to register what Rex had said.

_ "...What?" _

Rex looked around at the others, who looked just as confused and shocked.

"I didn't mean to scare you all. I didn't mean to do it, it just happened! I've never done it as a reflex action before."

"So you can just,  _ 'pop!' _ and you're there??" Batman said, waving a hand for emphasis.

"Yeah, pretty much." Rex shrugged.

Batman slowly let go of him and staggered back to stand next to Watevra. 

  
  


Then Robin came up from behind Rex and stood beside him, looking up at him in awe.

"Wow! That's amazing! Can you take other people there?!" He asked. 

Rex looked down at him surprised. Robin was so innocent, so naïve, as he looked up at him with wonder in his big adorable eyes. He had no idea how dangerous and debilitating the other realm was. He was totally oblivious to the fact he wouldn't even be able to move if he went there. Rex didn't even dare to think about what being in a place like that would do to someone as sweet Robin. Not that he'd have needed to. After all, he already knew...

So instead of breaking all that to him, Rex just smiled down at him and playfully ruffled his hair.

"...I don't know actually. But I don't think you'd like it much kiddo."

Robin beamed up at him, and Rex found himself smiling back despite everything.

  
  


Watevra moved over to him and wrung her hands together nervously.

"Are you ok though? I mean, that kinda went totally terrifically!"

Rex was suspicious for a moment, before Ice Cream Cone quickly ran to Watevra and whispered something to her and she corrected herself.

"I mean  _ terribly!" _ She said with a frown.

Rex looked away and rubbed his arm nervously.

"It's… A lot to take in. For a  _ number _ of reasons…"

Reasons which he decided not to bring up or even think about right now.

"I mean, I  _ did _ make you. So I guess that does  _ technically _ make me your… "

He hesitated. 

"... _ Father. _ "

Watevra beamed hopefully at him. 

"But I don't know if I'm exactly comfortable with-"

Watevra's smile slowly deflated and shrank, her colours changing to dark, upset blues. Rex stopped himself mid sentence. He really didn't want to hurt her feelings. He didn't feel like being the bad guy in this situation, or ruining what she'd obviously hoped to be some kind of heartfelt reunion any more than he already had.

"...that term." He finished.

Watevra kept her gaze away from him, evidently disappointed. Rex really wasn't sure what to do. But then, Robin tugged on his sleeve to get his attention and spoke up.

  
  


"She could call you Padre?" He suggested. Rex looked at him confused.

"Huh?"

Robin shyly held his hands behind his back and rubbed at the ground with his foot.

"It does mean Dad, but it's also a cool Spanish way of saying buddy!" 

Robin looked up at him hopefully. And as he looked back at Watevra, he could tell she was waiting with bated breath, wanting him to say yes.

Well, how could he say no to those two innocent faces?

"I…  _ guess _ I could be ok with that?"

In a flash, Watevra's colours exploded back to happy oranges, yellows and pinks, and she made herself larger again, with two big arms to scoop Rex up into a tight hug.

"Yay! Aw, you're  _ the best _ Padre!"

She squeezed Rex tight and laughed as she spun with him in her arms. He grimaced as her surprisingly strong arms crushed him with unyielding love. He tried to struggle out of her hold in a desperate attempt to restore his tough guy image, but it was no use. There was no escape from her joyful excitement.

"Oh by The Man Upstairs… This is gonna be a whole thing isn't it??"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! So Rex has finally met Watevra :D 
> 
> And we're gonna be seeing more of her from now on :> So look forward to that!
> 
> Also side note, her and Batman are such and odd, but actually really cute couple! xD Especially when you put Robin in there too. We need more Mama Watevra and Batdad!!! xD


	11. Batman Vs Brickowski

It was a quiet, sunny, utterly peaceful day in the grassy Syspocalypstar countryside. On top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by even more hills and valleys full of blooming wildflowers, were Benny, Metalbeard, Unikitty, Batman, Queen Watevra, Robin, Lucy, and Rex. 

They had a massive checkerboard rug laid out on the ground, which they were all sat on, with a big picnic basket right in the middle. They snacked on sandwiches, and crisps, and various other nibbles as they happily chatted amongst themselves. 

Rex laid on his back, his arms crossed behind his head, with one leg bent up at the knee and the other resting on top of it. He had his eyes closed, just enjoying the peaceful breeze and being out in the sunshine with his friends. It was such a simple thing. But Rex found it was one of his favourite moments he'd had in a long while.

There was almost nothing he liked more than feeling happy and content with his friends.

  


He'd been half listening to the others' conversation, when something Unikitty said caught his attention.

"Hey. Who do you think would win in a fight?"

He opened his eyes and turned his head towards her.

"Huh?" He asked.

She looked over at him, and everyone else quietened and paid attention to her.

"I said 'who do you think would win in a fight?' Out of all of us I mean. It just popped into my head and now I can't stop thinking about it."

Rex shrugged and looked up at Lucy, who was sat right next to him, before leaning back and relaxing, closing his eyes again.

"No idea Unikitty…" 

She frowned a little, then looked around at everyone.

"C'mon! You've all gotta be a little bit curious!"

Metalbeard flexed his cannon arm dramatically.

"Well. I suppose me size and strength would be most useful in a fight. I say I could beat any of ye in a fight."

Lucy scoffed at him.

"You? You're way too bulky and slow. I could totally out maneuver you!"

"Well if we're talking speed, then I'm definitely the fastest out of us!" Benny chimed in. Batman blew a raspberry and crossed his arms at him.

"Pfft! Speed is nothing without skill! If you have an in depth knowledge of martial arts and fighting techniques, you can beat anything. Plus a bit of strength helps. You use all that, which I totally can, you can win against anyone! So obviously I would win in a fight."

Watevra and Robin nodded supportively, and even Benny and Metalbeard had to admit defeat. Unikitty however, was unsure. She frowned at Batman, before looking over his shoulder at Rex, who was still casually chilling and smiling as he listened to his friends silly conversation.

"Well I think Rex is the best fighter here!"

Everyone except Unikitty and Lucy looked to Rex in confusion. He snapped his eyes open and looked back at Unikitty with a touched smile.

Then, Batman barked out a boisterous laugh.

_ "Rex? _ You think _ Rex _ could beat me?? Ha ha! That's- That's a good one Unikitty!" He laughed, wiping a single tear from his eye. Rex sat up and frowned at him.

"What? You think I can't handle myself in a fight?"

Batman slowed his laughing down to a quiet chuckle.

"Well, I mean you've got the strength on your side, sure. But to win a fight, especially against me, you'd need to have a lot of experience. It's quite a skill to be able to outwit your opponent, and I just don't see you being able to do that bro."

"Oh really?" Rex said, sharing a knowing look with Lucy and Unikitty.

"Well then how about it? You and me? Having a little one-on-one spar?"

The others looked at Rex with surprise but Batman just laughed again.

"Yeah, no way bro. Wouldn't want you to get hurt or anything!"

Rex got a devilish look in his eyes as he grinned mischievously.

"Very considerate of you Bats… But it sounds to me like you're afraid of losing." He turned his head away and winked at Lucy, who immediately caught on to his scheme.

"I'm not afraid of anything! I could totally take you on! Anytime, anywhere!" Batman confidentiality exclaimed. 

"So you agree to it then?" Rex said with a raised eyebrow. Batman spluttered again, slowly realising he was being backed into a corner that he couldn't get out of without backing down from a fight, which he was too proud to ever do.

"I- Wha- I mean-"

"Then how about we make things _ interesting?" _

Rex now had the most cocky, shit-eating grin on his face. Lucy was a little worried about whatever he was planning, worried he might be acting a little _ too _ confident, but she _ had _ said she would try and trust him more when it came to fighting… Plus it would just be a spar anyway, so there was less risk than with his arena fighting.

"What do you mean?" Batman asked. 

"If you don't win, you have to wear a shirt that says _ 'I love Superman! He's the best superhero ever!' _ and send a picture of it to the whole Justice League!"

Batman gasped in horror and spluttered, balling his fists in frustration before finally agreeing.

_ "Fine! _ But if you don't win, Watevra gets to give you a Systarian makeover!"

Watevra gasped and clapped excitedly.

"I do?!!"

Batman gave her a confident grin and a wink.

"You will when I win babe."

Lucy and Rex looked at each other for a moment. They both knew Rex would never want to be caught dead in some super cutesy Systarian outfit, as it would go way too far against his tough guy image, but Rex was feeling particularly confident in himself. So he stood up and held out his hand to Batman.

"Batman? You've got a deal!" 

Batman stood up too and walked over to Rex, shaking his hand in a firm hold.

_ "Deal!" _

They let go and Batman started walking down the hill, to get a safe distance away from their picnic setup. Everyone else got up and walked over to the edge of the hill, so they could all get a good spot to watch. Unikitty grinned and flicked her tail in excitement.

"Oh, this is gonna be_ good!" _ She growled.

  


Rex was about to follow Batman down the hill, when Lucy suddenly stood in front of him.

“Rex.” She firmly said as she put a hand to Rex’s chest to stop him walking any further.

“Yeah Luce?” He asked, curiously confused. She stared at him with a hard, serious look in her eyes.

_ “No Master Breaking. _ At _ all.” _

Rex was slightly taken aback, but then he took in her words. She was right to remind him about that particular skill of his. He almost had forgotten how often he could get carried away and use it. And it was certainly something he didn't want to use on his friend. This was only a friendly spar after all. They might get dirtied up and get a few bruises here and there, but serious injury was _ definitely _ off the table.

“I wouldn’t dream of it Luce…” He said softly. She smiled at him warmly.

"Though that being said…"

She leaned in close to his ear to whispered to him enthusiastically.

_ "Wipe the floor with him babe!" _

She pulled away, grinning at him wickedly. 

His mouth was agape as he blushed at her in surprise. She'd called him _ 'babe'! _ And she'd done it with that amazing mischievous smile of hers too… It made him feel all the more confident and determined to win. She believed he really _ could _ beat Batman. She had confidence in _ his fighting skills! _

He grinned that oh so sure of himself, cocky grin of his and leaned close to whisper to her.

_ "No problem, _ ** _sweet cheeks!"_ **

It was her turn to blush at that, but before she could say anything else, he ran off down the hill laughing happily.

  


At the base of the hill Batman was limbering up, loosening his joints and doing some stretches. Rex did the same, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles as he got ready. 

Watevra looked down at them, then to the others.

"Is this really such a good idea?"

Lucy shrugged at her.

"Probably not."

"But it's gonna be a fun one!" Unikitty shouted.

  


Batman finished his stretching and crouched slightly in a 'ready to fight' pose.

"Last chance to back out bro. No one would blame you for calling it quits."

"How about you stop putting this off, 'cause you're so afraid of losing, and we get to it instead?" Rex taunted.

Batman growled and the two of them stopped. They stared at each other, both poised to fight and determined to win.

Then the others, led by Unikitty, started shouting in unison.

_ "5, 4, 3, 2, 1… _ ** _FIGHT!_ ** _ " _

  


Batman darted forward, his fist pulled back ready to strike, but Rex slid to the side at the last second, leaving his leg out to trip Batman up. He stumbled in surprise, but managed to catch himself before falling. 

He turned around to face Rex, completely shocked. But Rex just grinned at him with his fists raised, waving a hand to taunt Batman onwards. Batman growled and ran at him again, this time being much more cautious. He threw a volley of punches, but Rex moved his arms to successfully block each and every blow. Batman was starting to get annoyed now. He threw a quick punch as a distraction, which Rex dodged, before throwing a harder one right after, aimed right at Rex's face. 

Rex threw up his hand just in time and caught Batman's fist in his hand. Batman froze in shock. All of their friends (except for Lucy and Unikitty) gasped in surprise.

Rex then wrenched his arm backwards, pulling Batman towards him, as he simultaneously kicked his right leg out to make Batman trip and fall right on his front.

Unikitty and Lucy cheered. 

"Woo! You go get him babe!!" She shouted as she waved down at Rex. 

A goofy grin grew across his face and he waved back at her.

But then, a second later, he felt himself falling to the ground. 

He fell to the grass with a thud and looked down to see Batman had grabbed onto his legs and pulled them out from under him. Rex growled and kicked his hands away, before rolling forward and into a standing position.

He turned and saw Batman back on his feet too. 

They ran at each other again, this time equally trading kicks and punches at one another. As one threw a hit, the other blocked. As the other tried to land a powerful punch, one would dodge out of the way. They kept on like that for several minutes straight.

Then, Batman aimed three punches at Rex's face. He'd lifted both his arms up in a protective shield, and waited. He was sure he'd figured out Batman's pattern, so once he'd felt the third punch land, he moved his arms out the way and moved to strike. 

But it seemed Batman had tried to shake things up. Because instead of stopping at three, he'd actually thrown a fourth in quick succession.

The punch landed and hit Rex right in the side of his jaw, making him stumble back and grab his face defensively.

He felt a twinge of pain as he touched the sore spot on his jaw. He looked back at Batman and saw him in a similar ready position to how Rex was earlier. He grinned at him and copied the 'come here' taunt Rex himself had used earlier.

Watevra and Robin whooped and cheered for him as Rex scowled back at him.

  


Well that taunt and the punch just served to really piss Rex off. 

If this had been any other fight, he'd have probably used that anger to fuel a master breaker punch. But he couldn't do that here. So instead, he used it to fuel his strength in a different way.

He darted forward and managed to maneuver around and grab Batman's utility belt and suit collar, lifting him up in the air. Just like he'd done with the robot in his last arena fight, he span around and used his master breaker strength to launch Batman flying up another hill. 

He chased after him as Batman rolled end over end as he landed. 

Rex leapt over the crest of the hill, ready to land a body slam on Batman, but he was ready for it. He rolled out the way as Rex slammed into the dirt, spraying clumps of it all over himself. Batman used that, and did his own elbow body slam right into Rex's back. 

He shouted out, in a very Emmet-like tone, as the spike of unexpected pain hit him. The sound made the others and even Batman freeze. He took immediate notice of that and decided to use it to his advantage (and also keep it in mind as something he could possibly use on purpose as a tactic in the future). He rolled over, throwing Batman off and knocking him across the hilltop.

Rex quickly stumbled to a standing position again, and readied himself for another attack.

As Batman ran towards him, Rex kicked up a spray of dirt, but it didn't stop him coming. He ran through it and tackled Rex, knocking him backwards and sending both of them tumbling down the large hill.

They rolled down it, grappling each other roughly, throwing punches and shouting loudly.

About halfway down, Rex kicked off the side of the hill and made them fly into the air. They continued to struggle for control, but eventually Rex came out on top. He shoved Batman below him, right before they crashed into the ground.

Dirt and dust kicked up all around them, creating a plume of smoke that the others couldn't see through. They all ran over to the impact site, worried for both their friends.

As they approached, the dust cleared.

Both Batman and Rex just laid splayed out on the floor on their backs in the middle of a crater. They were covered in mud and dust and grass, as well as a number of punch marks that would no doubt blossom into bruises later on. They huffed and panted with tremendous effort as they both just blankly stared up at the sky.

_ "Had… enough… yet? Brucey...?" _ Rex breathlessly breathed out.

Batman slowly turned his head in his direction.

_ "Not… until… you quit…" _

Rex shakily lifted his right arm and let it fall and slap down on Batman's chest.

_ "Then… I guess… we keep… going…" _

They both tried to move their arms underneath themselves to push themselves up, but they were suddenly shoved back to the ground by two multicoloured, tentacle like appendages.

"Oh, I don't think so!" Watevra shouted.

They both looked up at her as she loomed over them with an annoyed scowl on her face.

"This fight? Is _ over. _ I'm calling it now!"

They both looked up at her in surprise and shouted over each other.

_ "Watevra, no!" _

_ "Babe, not fair!" _

Watevra held them down harder before they could even try to struggle up again. She formed another arm and wagged a finger at them disapprovingly.

"Nuh, uh! I am your _ Queen, _ so what I say _ goes. _ And I say this fight is _ over. _ I'm not 'bout to let you both be idiots and hurt yourself no more. You're both as good as each other. No one loses. You both tied!"

They both turned to look at each other, before silently agreeing with Watevra. Neither of them had enough energy to put up an argument anyway. Rex let his head fall back in the dirt and caught his breath a bit before speaking again.

_ "Well… At least neither of us… has to do the punishment…" _

Unikitty then popped into their field of view with a very cheeky smile on her face.

_ "Actually…" _

Both Batman and Rex looked at her, before turning to each other and looking rather worried. 

  
  


\-----

  


"Why _on earth_ did I specifically use the phrase _'if you don't win'_ in our bet?! That was so dumb!" Rex complained as he sat in a chair in one of the dressing rooms in Queen Watevra's palace.

Watevra stood behind him as she listened to him and busied herself styling his hair.

"Aw! C'mon Padre! At least you and me are getting some one-on-one bonding time! You know, like a family!"

He sighed and rested his elbow on the armrest and held his head in one hand.

"I suppose."

Watevra paused her styling and moved to hold his shoulders as she leaned to his side and looked at him in the giant mirror in front of them.

"And don't you worry! I'm gonna make you look as fabulous as I possibly can! You're gonna look so stylish, that Batsy is gonna kick himself for ever thinking this could be a _ 'punishment'!" _

Rex looked at her enthusiastic smile in the mirror. He would have certainly preferred to win and not have his tough image tainted with Systarian cuteness. But he supposed he deserved it for being so cocky and overly confident. And besides, Watevra seemed extremely pleased with the situation at least. He supposed that was good for something. There was nothing wrong with a bit of sweetness and girly pampering if it made his friend (who practically considered him family) so happy. That warmed his heart and made him smile back at her kindly.

"Thanks, sweetheart…" He said softly.

Suddenly though, he froze.

_ "Wait, what did I just call her???" _ He thought to himself, as he realised all too late what he said.

Two arms suddenly wrapped around him and pulled him into a tight crushing hug, that made the chair he was sitting on dangerously creak, as Watevra rested her head on his shoulder.

His immediate thought, like it always was whenever he felt constricted, was to struggle free. But he decided against it. He'd already agreed to getting a makeover from Watevra, so why not indulge her just a bit more?

He sighed and lifted his arms up to hold over hers, and leaned into her hug. 

Maybe he was a tough guy that could hold his own against _ 'The Dark Knight', _ but no matter what, he was also still a big softie deep down at heart.

  


\-----

  


"Come on. You gotta stand closer together so we can get you both in frame!" Lucy giggled, holding her phone upright and aiming it at Rex and Batman.

The two of them looked absolutely mortified in their respective outfits, as all of their friends looked on at them stuck in various levels of giggle fits.

Batman awkwardly held his hands at his sides as he wore his _ 'I love Superman! He's the best superhero ever!' _ shirt (which also happened to be in Superman's colour scheme). And whilst that was obviously terrible for him, it was only just a shirt, so Rex arguably had it much worse.

Watevra had given him a _ serious makeover. _

She'd plaited two thin braids, one that ran from each side of his head to meet at the back and knot into a single one. His hair was also covered in a very glittery, rainbow hairspray that made it twinkle in the light. And then there was his _ face. _ She'd put green eyeshadow over his right eye and blue over his left eye, as well as given him matching colours of lipstick, a little green heart painted under his right eye, and a generous helping of blush and foundation on his cheeks.

The outfit wasn't nearly as bad though, and was maybe even somewhat cool, which he was certainly very thankful for. 

He wore a dark blue shirt with matching coloured, bell-bottom trousers. The left shirt arm had a long sleeve with a wide cuff, whilst the right side was sleeveless and neatly cut off at the shoulder. There was a large bright green 'R' on the left side of his chest, and at the opposite side had a little dinosaur embroidered near his waist. 

"Ok that's perfect! Now _ smile _ guys!" Lucy only just managed to say through busts of giggles.

  


"If I ever suggest doing anything like this ever again, _ shoot me!" _ Rex said through gritted teeth he had pressed into an awkward smile, as he leaned towards Batman.

"I kinda got a rule against not using guns, but I'll let that slide if you ever do." He told Rex through a grumpy scowl.

"Say cheese!" Lucy teased, as she hit the button and finally took the picture.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, you have no idea how much I laughed drawing Rex's face there ^^^ x'D
> 
> Also btw, that outfit Rex is wearing (minus all that makeup) is from these two posts by Piece-of-resistance!!!
> 
> https://piece-of-resistance.tumblr.com/post/185171653655/i-got-a-request-what-if-lucy-dyed-rexs-hair-and  
https://piece-of-resistance.tumblr.com/post/186225963930/thanks-for-answering-my-other-ask-i-really
> 
> And well, this outfit just might come into play again later... ;3


	12. A Night At The Pub

Lucy had decided to take Rex on a night out to one of her favourite places in Syspocalypstar. 

They were at a Ye Olde, pirate themed pub that sat at the edge of the local docks. It was a place that Metalbeard had introduced her to, and visited with her a number of times, so she thought it might be a fun place to take Rex to.

Emmet had never been one for drinking, but Rex seemed quite open to the idea.

  
  


"So, you drink now?" Lucy asked as she and Rex each sat down on a stool at the bar. He shrugged and gave her a self assured grin.

"Oh yeah. I can totally pound back a load of brews all night long. 'Cause my tolerance is so built up and stuff!" 

She raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously.

" _ Really? _ "

His cocky grin fell, and morphed into a sheepish smile.

"Uh,  _ well- _ ok no. That's not true. Turns out never drinking alcohol your whole adult life makes you quite a lightweight."

She shook her head at him and smiled as he perked up.

"Though on the bright side, it does mean I can get sloshed for way cheaper. So I guess it's not so bad."

As they chatted, a barman walked up to them and caught their attention.

"What can I get you two?"

"I'll have a pint of beer. What about you Rex?"

He thought about it for a moment, before finally deciding.

"I'll take a dark fruit cider."

The bartender nodded and bent down to grab some glasses from under the bar. Rex looked to Lucy quizzically with a raised eyebrow.

"I didn't think you'd like beer Luce?"

She shrugged.

"Yeah, well, you can blame Metalbeard for getting me into it. But what about you? I'd have thought beer would have been right up your alley,  _ tough guy?" _ She teased, playfully jabbing an elbow in his side.

"I've had it before. A fair bit actually. It was my go to drink whenever I went to a rough bar in the Old West and had to look tough in front of outlaws and cowboys. But just like black coffee, I've since decided to stop drinking it. I don't need to fit into any quote, unquote _'macho'_ stereotypes anymore. I'm already _plenty_ _tough_ as it is. So I'm not gonna keep having something I don't like just to keep up some dumb appearance I don't care about that much."

They smiled at each other, and Lucy was happy to see Rex so suitably confident in himself.

"Also I don't care  _ what _ anyone says. Beer is  _ disgusting _ and I'm not wasting money on something that tastes like piss."

She giggled at him.

"It does get better the more you have of it!" She argued. He just scrunched his face at her, totally unconvinced.

"No, it doesn't. It gets more  _ tolerable _ . Why the hell would I want to waste money on something that only gets marginally less terrible the more you have of it, when I could just have something that tastes nice in the first place?"

She laughed.

"I suppose you have a point."

  
  


It was then that their drinks came. The bartender set a big tankard down in front of Lucy, and a tall glass with ice cubes and a straw in it in front of Rex. He pulled out an orange and black wallet with a little triceratops on it, and slapped some cash on the bar. Those arena winnings of his certainly did come in handy. 

The bartender took the cash and gave some change back, before walking off elsewhere to serve another customer.

Rex and Lucy both raised their glasses and clinked them together, before each taking a sip. Rex hummed with pleasure as he tasted the sweet flavour run down his throat with only a pleasantly mild burn.

"Hmm! See that? That's fruity and delicious! Wanna try some?"

"Sure, if you'll try some of mine."

They swapped over their glasses, and simultaneously took a sip of each other's drinks. Lucy hummed happily, whilst Rex let out a disgusted  _ bleugh! _ He put the tankard down and slid it over to her.

" _ Yup!  _ Still disgusting!" He said with a shudder as he stuck his tongue out. Lucy laughed at him and placed his drink back in front of him.

"Well your cider is definitely sweeter. Just like you." She said as she tilted her head at him with a sweet, yet cheeky smile. He scoffed at her.

"Pfft!  _ Please!  _ If anyone is the sweet one here, it's obviously you! I mean, you are the one with the cotton candy hair after all!"

She quickly grabbed a strand of her hair and inspected it in a panic.

"What?! It doesn't look like cotton candy!"

Rex leaned over to her, studying her hair in intense thought.

"Hmm… You know what? You're right."

He leaned back in his stool and raised his glass to mouth with a smirk.

"It actually looks like bubblegum…" 

She gasped at him in offended shock as he took a deep sip of his drink. He lowered it and she gave him a playful, yet forceful, shove. It made him spill a bunch of his cider over himself, but he didn't care, he laughed and snorted as he wiped himself with his sleeve. She laughed with him too. She supposed it was all pretty funny.

  
  


They were happily giggling together with Lucy trying to help wipe some of the cider off of Rex's vest, when they were suddenly interrupted.

"Heeeyyy, good lookin'! Wanna have a drink?"

Lucy turned around behind her to see a guy in rough-looking, spiked apocalypse gear standing right behind her. He casually leant an elbow on the bar and ogled her with a sleazy grin. She looked at him with a disgusted frown before ignoring him and turning her attention back to Rex.

"Urgh.  _ Not interested." _

He put on a mock frown and pouted.

"Oh c'mon! No reason to play hard to get!"

Rex leaned behind Lucy to get a better look at the guy. He didn't like what he saw  _ at all. _ He'd been around enough rough customers to spot a sleazeball from a mile away. 

" _ Hey! _ She said she's not interested. Why don't you take a hint and  _ leave." _ Rex warned. The guy scoffed and tried to shrug him off.

"Pfft! Why don't  _ you _ leave bozo? The lady and I are talking here."

Lucy finally turned back around and glared at him.

"No, we're  _ not _ . I suggest you listen to him and  _ go _ ."

The guy smiled a cocky, unappealing smile and inched his way closer to Lucy.

"Come on girl! I've seen you in here by yourself a lot. Sat here alone at the bar, drinking away your worries. But I know deep down you just want some awesome company."

Rex did not like where this was going. So he put on his gruffest voice and tried to put an immediate stop to it.

"Hey! If you're too  _ thick _ or too  _ drunk _ and you didn't already notice, she  _ has _ company. So why don't you  _ piss off?" _

The guy's sleazy smile turned to an angered frown as he looked over Rex in annoyance.

"And who the hell are you to say that to me? You think you're tough? Huh big guy? I could wipe the floor with you! I mean, just look at you! Who even wears a dorky bright orange safety vest out to a bar?"

Rex glanced down to his vest and looked over it. He thought it had looked cool. It even had his R emblem on it and everything! That wasn't dorky! 

...Was it?

The guy continued to look over him in thought, when all of a sudden he came to a realisation.

"Wait a minute… You're not that annoyingly perky dork that ran around singing  _ 'Everything is Awesome' _ for the whole apocalypse, are you?"

Rex grimaced at him uncomfortably, like he'd been hit with a spike of embarrassing pain.

  


And that was all the guy needed to know he was right.

"Ha! You are aren't you?! Well, that just makes everything easier. I mean you're nothing but a pathetic little push over, aren't you?"

Rex lost his embarrassment and immediately replaced it with a growing anger.

"You keep talking, and you're gonna find out just how much of a push over I'm really  _ not. _ " Rex deeply growled.

" _ Please! _ Like you're even worth my time! Ha!" He laughed.

Rex gripped the edge of the bar in frustration as he held himself back, the wood creaking under the pressure. The guy just shook his head and confidentiality walked closer to Lucy.

  
  


"C'mon girl, why don't you say we ditch this wimp and have some  _ real _ fun?"

  
  


Then he grabbed Lucy's arm.

  
  


She was about to pull it away and yell at the guy, but she didn't react nearly as fast as Rex did.

Rex was on his feet and at her side in an instant. He'd grabbed the guy's bicep in a crushingly tight hold and yanked him away from Lucy so forcefully that he stumbled backwards and fell over. 

Rex advanced forward and put himself between the guy and Lucy. His fists shook as he held them tightly against his sides. His teeth were bared in a snarl of rage and Lucy could just feel the pure, unbridled fury seething off of him.

The guy looked up at Rex in surprise, before snarling himself and quickly standing up to face off against Rex. He pulled his fist back and tried to throw a punch, but Rex was in  _ no mood _ to play around with the guy. 

He grabbed the guy's fist as it came at him and crushed it in his hold, making him yelp in surprise. He then wrenched the guy's arm painfully behind him, whilst he simultaneously grabbed and pulled the guy's hair with his left hand.

He maneuvered the guy to the side and quickly slammed his head roughly down on the bar twice in quick succession. The impact rattled the glasses that sat on the bar so much, that they threatened to topple over.

Rex leaned over the guy and growled in his ear.

"YOU.  _ DON'T.  _ ** _TOUCH HER!_ ** "

He struggled under Rex's grasp, muttering curses under his breath. But Rex was not about to stand for that. He pulled on the guy's hair, lifting his head up, before slamming it back down hard. The guy groaned in pain as blood started to leak from his now broken nose and drip onto the bar.

"DON'T YOU _EVER_ _FUCKING_ TOUCH HER!" Rex roared in his ear.

The guy stilled and panted, before nasally spitting out a reply.

" _ Fine! Whatever. I won't touch the bitch…" _

  
  


You know, if he had stopped after saying  _ 'fine', _ then Rex would have let him go and run off to tend to his wounded pride.

But he hadn't. 

So Rex stared down at him with a look in his eyes that burned with anger beyond fury.

_ No one _ called  ** _his Lucy_ ** such a  ** _filthy_ ** word like  ** _that_ ** and got away with it.

  
  


Rex let go of his arm and yanked the guy's head back with a tremendous force that threw him across the floor. Other people around them that had been ignoring the situation suddenly turned their attention to the commotion and quietened.

Rex stalked over to him as he laid on his side on the floor. He looked up at Rex with genuine fear in his eyes for the first time. 

Rex had been mad about a lot of things for a very long time, and yes he'd mostly gotten over some of it now, but this? This random, sleazy  _ asshole _ coming on to  _ his Lucy, _ the coolest, the most beautiful, and most  _ special _ person in his life, in such a  _ disrespectful _ way and then trying to forcefully  _ take her away, _ to grab her, to use her, to  _ hurt her? _

That made Rex feel more outrage than he'd ever felt in all his years of isolation.

Rex's tough leather gloves creaked and threatened to tear under the strain of his tight fists. He pulled back his leg and kicked the guy as hard as he could with his steel toed boots, right in his crotch. He yelled out in pain and rolled onto his back, but Rex wasn't stopping there. 

Rex raised his leg up in the air with a vicious snarl, before slamming it down and stomping right on the guy's chest.

He screamed in agony and curled his arms around himself as he writhed in pain. The entire pub fell deathly quiet. 

As Rex inched his way closer, the guy stopped his gasps of pain to start coughing and spasming. He hacked out a small amount of blood onto the floor, but Rex didn't notice. He grabbed the guy's shirt with his left hand and lifted him effortlessly into the air, as he pulled back his right hand into a fist. 

The guy's eyes were wide with terror as Rex stared back at him with passionate, livid, merciless fury.

Lucy, who had been frozen on her seat in shock that he would ever attack another person so violently, jumped up and ran toward them with an arm outstretched.

  
  


" **EMMET ** ** _STOP!"_ ** She cried.

  
  


He snapped his gaze towards her and she instantly froze in her tracks. The look on his face was so cold with unbridled outrage that it sent her staggering back a few steps in fear. 

Emmet had never,  _ ever _ looked at her like that.  _ Rex _ had never looked at her like that either, not even when he'd been angry on one of his bad days. She'd seen him fight before too, but those couple times she had, he'd done it for fun, for a challenge, for a way to exercise and keep his skills sharp. But this? What he'd just done? She'd never thought he'd be capable of such utterly furious,  _ terrifying _ violence. 

Slowly his face morphed to a less angered scowl as he turned back to face the guy and snarl in his face.

  
  


_"If you think about acting like that to her, or _**_anyone_** **_else_**_, ever again… I will _**_end_** **_you_**_."_

The guy stayed frozen, not daring to breathe or even blink as Rex stared back at him.

After a few seconds Rex let go, uncaringly dropping him to the ground, before turning on his heels and stomping off towards the exit without another word. Other people in the pub gave him a wide berth and backed away as he came near them. No one said anything or even dared to move other than that until he'd smacked the exit doors out of the way and let them slam shut behind him. 

Lucy took a quick look at the guy on the floor, before quickly running out after Rex.

  
  


She caught up to him fairly soon and walked beside him as he kept stalking forwards, not once looking at her or in any way acknowledging her presence.

She walked next to him in silence for a minute, before gently reaching out to him.

"Rex…"

_ "He shouldn't have touched you." _ He growled, suddenly stopping dead in his tracks. His fists clenched at his sides as he looked down and away from her. She stopped too and stood in front of him.

  
  


_ "He'd already gone too far. But that was  _ ** _way_ ** _ over the line…" _

His quiet voice still oozed with rage, but it wasn't directed at her. Despite stopping himself and walking away, he was still utterly furious about what that guy had done.

  
  


"I  _ can _ take care of myself Rex…" She gently tried to reassure him. His fists unclenched and he sighed as his anger faded away.

"... I know. But I can too." He said softly and sadly.

Finally he looked up at her and met her eyes. He squinted slightly, like he was in pain, or terribly sorry, or perhaps both at once. 

"I couldn't protect you before… But I can now."

His eyes glistened as he looked at her sorrowfully and shook his head.

"I won't **_ever_** lose you again…"

  
  


She was taken aback, only realising now what he meant, and why he'd been so quick to protect her.

Years ago, when she and the others had been captured by General Mayhem, he'd tried to build a couch mech to save them. But it hadn't worked. It had been smashed apart and he'd failed. They were taken away, and he'd lost them, feeling completely responsible. That had been the last time they'd seen each other before he'd gotten stranded on Undar. 

He'd never been much of a fighter even before that. There'd been so many times she'd rescued him, but he'd hardly ever been able to return the favour. And the most important time he'd tried, he'd failed. And that one act had torn his life to shreds.

But now he was back. He was here. He was a tough, skilled fighter who could beat anything if he really put his mind to it. He had his friends back, he had  _ her _ after so long of being without them.

So of course he'd do anything in his power to stop any perceived threat to them. He'd never let them be hurt or taken away from him again.

And whilst that was all utterly touching, it didn't stop the fact he'd let his anger get so out of control, he'd almost stopped himself too late.

  
  


"Rex, you beat the  _ shit _ out of that guy. You could have killed him!" 

He looked away from her and frowned.

_ "If I'd really wanted him dead, he would be…" _

He had seriously considered it, but decided not to. Especially not after the way Lucy had looked at him. 

And she realised that too. Rex really wasn't sweet little Emmet who'd never hurt a fly. He could, and  _ would, _ easily hurt anyone if necessary. And he had absolutely no qualms about doing that. 

"I know…"

But that still showed his sweetness in a way. He wouldn't just attack anyone at random out of malice. He'd only done it because he cared so much. Because he wanted to protect her.

  
  


She walked up to him and lifted both his hands in hers. He kept his head turned away.

"Look- I appreciate  _ why _ you did that. You just wanted to protect me. I know how well you can fight, I've seen you,  _ you know that! _ You'd master break the moon just to keep me from harm! But it's just that I don't want to see you get in trouble babe…"

She raised a hand to his face, cupping his cheek to gently make him look at her.

"I can't ever lose  _ you  _ again either…"

He leaned into her hand, looking down at her earnestly, but also like he was disappointed in himself.

"I'm sorry Lucy…"

She smiled up at him and rubbed a thumb across his rough cheek.

"It's ok babe."

Slowly she let go of his face and turned to stand beside him. She kept a hold of his left hand and intertwined her fingers between his, gently pulling him forward so they could walk side by side. Rex squeezed her hand back, but even so, he kept glancing away from her, feeling guilty about ruining their fun night out.

As they headed back home in silence, Rex decided he wanted to think of a way to make it up to her...

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was a fun chapter huh? :> Personally I really like this one! Rex being protective and bad ass is pretty cool >:3
> 
> A concept I found interesting was, once Rex has his friends again, his biggest fear is probably losing them again. So given that, I think he'd get super protective of them if they ever got in trouble/ were in danger. This is especially true with Lucy. And well, and angry Rex determined to protect his friends? Let's just say I'd hate to be whoever's pissed him off. As you can see xD
> 
> Also I think I slipped my personal thoughts on beer in there. Personally I don't drink much, not for any particular reason, but when I do it's usually a nice fruity cider. It tastes sweet and nice! So apologies to any beer drinkers but, I just don't how you like that stuff. I could see Emmet definitely being disgusted by the taste, so obviously Rex would too. Though of course he tried to shrug that off to look tough. But good ol' Rex Brickowski is less of a macho dumbass like that. Or at least, he's trying/ learning to be!
> 
> And there were two pieces of art for this chapter! :D the first one was a sketch done by BrickowskiBois on Tumblr/ RexBrickowski on here :> That she posted around the time I was writing this one, and I liked it so much that I decided to colour it! :D so it's like a Collab between the two of us.  
https://malisonquill.tumblr.com/post/186819685225/its-our-good-bois-d
> 
> And that second was once again by the ever amazing Piece-of-resistance!!! Thank you so much for doing that one!!! c: it looks so cool!!!!   
(I'll post a link to it in its full glory soon :> )


	13. Rex The Master-Baker

Rex was stood in front of a counter in the kitchen. He'd found a set of measuring cups in one of the cupboards and was looking at them on the worktop curiously. 

  
  


"CUPCAKE TIME!"

In a split second he frowned and turned around to the unexpected voice.

"Wha-?  _ Mmph!" _

He was promptly cut off mid sentence as a cupcake was suddenly shoved into his open mouth.

Hit bit down on instinct, raising a hand to partly hold the cupcake so he didn't drop it.  He realised it was carrot cake; his favourite. It was sweet, and moist, and perfectly balanced with frosting on the top of it. He hummed happily as he chewed and tasted it's wonderful flavour.

He looked down to see Unikitty smiling up at him and raised an eyebrow at her.

“The door's locked. How’d you even get in here?” He muffled through a mouth full of cake.

_ “Ooooohhhhhh, _ I have my ways…” She said with a sly squint. Rex frowned at her as he swallowed, before gesturing at her with the rest of his cake still in his hand.

“You better not have broken a door or anything, otherwise Lucy’s gonna blame me!” 

"Nothings broken! I  _ promise!" _

She looked at him with an innocent smile, one that he was having a hard time completely trusting.

"You could have knocked you know."

She pouted at him before smiling widely.

"But if I'd done that, I wouldn't have been able to give you your cupcake surprise!"

He sighed, looking down at his cupcake. He had to admit it was  _ really _ good. And it had been a nice surprise, if not a bit of a potentially dangerous choking hazard. He shoved the rest of it into his mouth with a shrug and wiped his hands clean on his vest.

"So how long do we have until Wyldstyle gets back anyway?"

Rex gulped down the last bit of his cupcake and leant back against the counter casually.

"Four hours. Ish. That's enough time to do what we wanna do, right?"

"Yeah, that should be plenty of time!" Unikitty beamed at him.

She then trotted out of the kitchen, before coming back with two large bags in one of her paws. She stood up on her back legs and dumped them on the countertop next to Rex.

"So I brought the stuff you wanted. But I also brought some different stuff too. I know you said you wanted to make Wyldstyle a red velvet cake, but it can be kind of tricky to get the consistency right. So I brought some more basic cake ingredients too 'cause it's easier for beginners. Or well, really,  _ really _ rusty people."

Rex looked over the two big bags and all the stuff in them as he and Unikitty started placing everything out on the worktop.

"This is very thoughtful Unikitty, but I  _ have _ to go for a red velvet cake. It's Lucy's favourite! And I really wanted to make it for her…"

  
  


He was very thankful for his good memory when it came to knowing random obscure facts about his friends and their interests. Even after all this time he could remember every favourite thing of Lucy's she'd ever told him about. He'd thought making her favourite cake for her would be a good way to show he was sorry for ruining their night out the other day. A small, sweet, (literally) gesture to show he cared and just to make her happy.

Unikitty sighed as she looked at him frowning in thought.

"Alright Rex, we'll give it a go. I haven't made a red velvet cake in a while, but we should be able to do it. Hopefully…" 

They finished placing the ingredients and some equipment she'd brought out on the worktop, before putting the empty bags out of the way over by the breakfast nook. Rex looked over everything in uneasy confusion. Yeah they wouldn't be using it all, but there were still so many different things. He didn't know how to even begin to make a start.

Baking had been so easy to him years ago. He was almost jealous of his past self for taking it so for granted. Old Emmet could have whipped up a cake using only his memory as his recipe. But Rex was so unsure about the various gadgets and vast number of different ingredients, that he felt he'd mess everything up as soon as he touched it.

He was a master  _ breaker, _ not a master  _ baker. _

He looked over at Unikitty sitting next to him curiously.

"Aren't you gonna measure out some of this? Or something?"

She shook her head at him.

"Nope! I'm just here to supervise remember?  _ You're _ the one who's gonna do everything."

"But what if I get something wrong? Or, I dunno, set something on fire?" He nervously exclaimed, but she only waved a paw at him in dismissal.

"You won't, because I'm gonna guide you through it every step of the way. And besides, there's always a fire extinguisher right in that corner!"

He looked away from her and frowned, still unsure. He really didn't want to mess up his gift to Lucy. And he knew from past experience years ago that anyone could easily mess up a cake just by misjudging timing by just a minute or two. Especially something that had to be mixed just right, like a red velvet cake. It was a very delicate skill to get everything right, and well,  _ 'delicate' _ didn't really describe him anymore. 

Unikitty took notice and put a paw on his arm to get his attention again.

"Hey. You said you wanted this to be from  _ you, _ right? And it will be! You are gonna make a cake, and it's gonna be delicious, and it's all gonna go right because I'm gonna make sure of it! And Wyldstyle is gonna  _ love it!" _

He smiled down at her, fairly reassured.

"But if you want it to be done before she gets back, then you gotta stop worrying and just do it! Ok?" She asked. 

He had to agree. If he just stood there worrying and treating everything so preciously, then they'd never get anything done. So he just had to make a start and get the ball rolling.

"...Ok."

She smiled happily up at him, before getting that sly look in her eye again.

_ "Buuuut _ before you do, I got another little surprise for you."

She ran out the room again, before coming back in whilst trying to hold something behind her back. She beamed up at him and shot a flurry of sparkles from her horn as she handed something to him. 

"Ta-da!"

He looked down and unfolded what turned out to be an apron. It was black, with bright green and white text that read  _ "Brofist the chef!" _ with a little picture of two fists colliding underneath it. 

"I saw it whilst getting a few of the ingredients and it was just  _ so you! _ I just had to get it!"

He laughed down at it happily and put it on, tying a bow around the back to secure it. He then put his hands on his hips and inspected himself.

"Guess it does kinda suit me, huh?"

"Yeah! It does! So how about we get to it now, and do some baking now that you're properly equipped?"

"Ha ha! Sure!" 

  
  


After making him take off his gloves and wash his hands, Unikitty started instructing him step by step in how to make a delicious red velvet cake.

  
  


They started by preheating the oven and buttering up the cake pans for later, giving them a gentle dusting of cocoa powder for added flavour and decoration. 

Rex then had to measure everything out so it'd all be ready to go when they needed to mix it together. He grabbed an unopened bag of flour and roughly tore the top of it open, his tight grip on it sending a puff of flour up everywhere and sending both him and Unikitty into a coughing fit. 

After they recovered from that, Rex was a bit more careful with handling the rest of the ingredients. They didn't bother cleaning up the mess yet though, as there wasn't much point in doing that when their baking would just make it dirty again anyway. So they figured they'd wait till everything was done.

Once everything was measured out, Rex sieved the dry ingredients and whisked them together in a bowl, occasionally spraying flour over the sides, until it was all evenly combined.

After that was beating together the butter and sugar in the big electric mixing bowl Unikitty had brought. Rex was worried about messing up the timing and overbeating it or something, but Unikitty was there beside him and told him exactly when it looked right.

  
  


"Ok, now add one of the eggs."

He picked up an egg from the open carton and promptly dropped it whole into the bowl.

"NO! Not like that! You gotta break it, remember??" Unikitty cried. 

He blushed a little in embarrassment as he immediately realised his mistake.

"Oh! Yeah, right! Of course!" 

He fished the now sticky egg out of the bowl and tried gently tapping it on the edge of the rim to break it open. But for some reason it didn't work. He tried tapping it slightly harder, but it barely cracked at all. Getting a little frustrated, he tried using more force for his third attempt. 

Unfortunately though, he misjudged it and used way too much, which caused the egg to splatter open and get gunk and egg shell pieces all over his hand, the worktop, and down the outside of the bowl.

He growled in irritation and grabbed a piece of kitchen towel to clean his hand. 

"Hey don't worry about it Rex! Cracking an egg can be a lot harder than it looks."

He grumbled dismissively at her as he tossed the dirty kitchen towel to the side.

"You're just saying that to make me feel better. It's not hard, it's supposed to be easy! But I can't even do something as simple as  _ this _ right. We're never gonna make anything edible…"

He looked away and pouted, but Unikitty wasn't about to have that!

"C'mon! Don't be such a grumple dumpous Rex! We can do this! Just- here!"

Unikitty pulled a drawer open and pulled out a butter knife, which she then handed to Rex, before grabbing another egg to give to him too.

"Hold the egg gently in one hand, and with the other smack the knife down quickly with a light tap. That should crack it just enough so you can pry it apart and put it in the bowl." 

Rex looked between the knife and the egg curiously for a moment, before trying to do what she'd instructed. 

He smacked the knife down just like she'd said, and it made a big crack in the middle of the shell. He put the knife down and held the egg over the bowl, successfully prying it apart and letting the yolk inside drop down without any pieces of shell falling in too. He looked at Unikitty and smiled in surprise.

"See? What'd I tell ya? We got this! **_You_** got this!"

He grinned widely as he discarded the egg shell, and wiped his hands against each other before confidently putting his hands on his hips.

"Yeah… You're right! Ok so, what's next?"

Unikitty smiled at him warmly.

"Now we gotta beat that to combine it a bit, then put in a second egg."

Rex then turned the mixer back on and set it going, whilst he repeated the process he'd just used to crack open a second egg and put it in. He watched the buttery, sugary, eggy mess be stirred together, but something didn't quite look right to him.

"It's gonna curdle…" He worryingly muttered. Unikitty stood up taller and looked down into the bowl.

"No, no. It's supposed to look like that! It's gonna go smooth in a sec, trust me!" 

He was a little unsure about that, but decided to trust her and let it continue anyway. After a minute or two, it all successfully creamed together and looked just like he remembered it was supposed to.

"Huh, you were right." He said surprised.

  
  


With that done, he then added in the rest of the liquid ingredients. As it all turned into a smooth batter, the red food colouring stained the entire mixture in its signature red appearance. 

"Ok so we're gonna put the dry stuff in now. This bit is important. We don't want to overmix it here, so you gotta stop as soon as it's just combined, ok?" 

"Alright."

He sieved it all in slowly as the mixer gently stirred everything around. The dry parts stuck together with the wet sticky parts until it slowly started to merge into one consistent thing. 

Rex stared at it intently. 

It seemed to be combined alright, but there were still a few small lumps in it. He thought about letting it keep mixing, but then me remembered from his own past experience years ago that a few small lumps like that were totally fine, and were certainly better than overmixing it all. So he decided to stop the machine. 

Unikitty smiled and gave him a pat on the back. 

"That's perfect! Now we just gotta pour the batter and put it in the oven." 

  
  


Rex then grabbed the bowl in his hands and started to pour it into the two cake tins he’d prepped earlier. He and Unikitty chatted as he used a spatula to smooth the batter out, before he popped it into the oven and set a timer for about 30 minutes. 

  
  


Whilst it cooked, Unikitty started guiding Rex on how to make the cream cheese frosting. 

He was surprised at how well things were going. He’d thought they would have had to use the fire extinguisher on something at least once, but it turned out he was doing well enough that he didn’t even have to think about needing it. 

Some of his old tricks and muscle memory even kicked in every now and then, and he was finding he felt more and more confident with the whole ‘cooking’ thing again. Maybe after this he could try out more things too! Like making his own carrot cakes for himself, or maybe making something more interesting than salad for whenever it was his turn to make dinner for him and Lucy. 

He and Unikitty laughed together happily as they chatted, and baked, and had a genuinely good time in each other’s company.

  
  


\-----

  
  


When Lucy came home, she heard two distinct voices laughing and giggling from kitchen. She thought Rex would be home alone, so she decided to investigate whatever was going on. 

When she walked into the kitchen, she saw Rex and Unikitty chatting together in front of a counter whilst surrounded by a chaotic mess. A thick layer of flour coated almost everything, there were dirty jugs and spoons scattered about, and a load of half used and empty packets and bottles strewn about everywhere. 

"What's going on in here?" She asked.

Both Rex and Unikitty scrambled with something on the countertop in a panic, before turning around to face Lucy whilst they scooted closer together. 

"Uh- Lucy! You're back early!" Rex exclaimed with an awkward smile.

She looked between them suspiciously. They were obviously hiding something, but she had no idea what exactly. But from the mess around them, to the fact that Rex was wearing some kind of new, silly apron, she had a feeling it had something to do with food.

"...What are you two up to?" 

They took a quick glance at each other, before talking over each other at the same time.

"Just chatting." Rex casually stated.

"YOU CAN'T LOOK YET!" Unikitty shouted in a panic.

Rex shot her a glare and she shrugged at him apologetically. 

Lucy walked closer to them, and they instinctively inched even closer together to hide whatever was on the counter. She stared at Rex, squaring him up with a hard look in her eye as he smiled nervously down at her. 

“You’ve got flour on your face.” 

Rex was taken aback by that rather unexpected remark. 

"Where?" He asked.

She quickly wiped a bit of flour off the counter next to him and booped him right on the end of his nose with it.

" _ There." _ She said with a cheeky smile. 

Lucy and Unikitty giggled as he scrunched up his face and tried to recover from his unexpected booping. But then he breathed in the powdery flour, which aggravated his nose, and caused him to sneeze like an adorable little kitten. 

He was visibly mortified at the sound he’d just made as the other two burst out into raucous laughter. 

But after they eventually quietened down, Lucy tried to take a peek over Rex’s shoulder to get a look at what they had behind them.

“So. You two going to show me whatever it is you’ve got back there, or what?”

Rex looked at Unikitty nervously. She nodded at him encouragingly, so he turned around and pulled out something from behind him.

“So, I tried making you a cake… keyword there is  _ tried. _ I don't really know how well it came out…”

Lucy looked down to see Rex holding out a cake covered in delicately piped white frosting, with a message on it written in a different kind of red icing that read:  _ "Sorry I'm an asshat sometimes!". _ She looked up at him, stunned. 

“It’s red velvet! I know it’s your favourite, so I decided to make it as kind of an apology for the other night…” He sweetly said with an unsure, yet hopeful smile. 

She looked between the rather impressive-looking cake and back at him for a moment.

“You made this? For me? All by yourself?” She asked with a suspicious sideways glance at Unikitty, who perked up with a proud smile as she looked at Lucy.   
  


“Well I instructed him a bit and made sure he didn’t burn the house down, but yeah! Rex did everything himself! I didn’t touch  _ a thing. _ It was all him!” 

She studied the cake again. He’d obviously taken a great deal of care, time and effort on just the outside decoration alone. The letters were neatly written and very uniform, and the message was so genuine and so  _ Rex  _ at the same time. 

She was touched.

“Thank you Rex…” 

“You’re welcome.” He smiled warmly. 

He then put the cake back down and pulled out a knife from one of the drawers, gesturing at the cake with a cheeky smile. 

"So, do you want a slice of ass?"

Lucy laughed at him and nodded. He cut out a chunk that mostly just had the word  _ ‘ass’ _ on it and Unikitty handed him a plate and a fork so he could give the piece to Lucy.

She took it from him and inspected its neat, even layers, before getting a fork full of it and taking a bite. 

Immediately she was hit with a sweet blend of vanilla and chocolatey goodness, and a light, fluffy texture that combined perfectly with the cream cheese frosting. She hummed in utter sugary bliss as she looked at an expectant Rex with an amazed smile.

“HMM! Rex! This is so good! You’re a really great baker!”

It was his turn to be touched at that. His sweet smile was so wide with joy that he just couldn’t contain his excitement. 

His plan had worked! She really had liked the cake he made! It wasn’t much, but it was at least enough to make her happy, and maybe make up for what he’d done a little bit. 

Unikitty then got a sly grin, and poked at Rex’s arm with her paw.

“You might even say he’s a _master-baker!_ _Huh? _**_Huh?_**_”_

He looked down at her and scoffed, playfully giving her a rough noogie as  _ pun _ ishment for her terrible word-play. But that just made all of them laugh even harder. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, not sorry xD But I love terrible puns!!!
> 
> Man I love Rex and Unikitty being friends!!! They're such a fun pair! And Unikitty gives some good practical cooking advice there. If you ever have trouble cracking eggs, definitely use that technique she mentioned. It works for me anyway :>
> 
> And you know something weird about this chapter? I got more confused trying to wrap my head around writing them cooking than I did trying to coordinate Rex and 6 robots fighting back in The Pits chapter xD Like, for some reason I found it tricky to balance imagining what each stage of cooking looked like whilst reading a recipe, how to describe that, and then what Rex's thoughts were. Weird huh? xD But I think it worked out! And this is a pretty cute one too :3


	14. The Grand Champion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's another longer chapter guys! Over 6000 words :D

Rex put the finishing touches to the last stripe on his left arm, before putting on his old blue gloves and looking at himself in the changing room mirror. 

His 'Danger Fist' outfit was complete. He gave his shoulder pads a little wiggle to make sure they were totally secure and wouldn't move about whilst he was running around fighting. The last thing he needed was one of his own pieces of protective gear flying off and hitting him in the face or something. But with that done, he'd totally finished getting ready for the arena fight starting in about half an hour.

Now there was just one more thing for him to do.

He grabbed his duffel bag full of his regular clothes, his face paint, his phone, and his wallet, double checking everything was in it, before heading out of the changing room and into the VIP section of the arena.

He gave a quick wave as he passed by the familiar faces of some of the arena workers and kept walking until he found the room he was looking for.

He walked in, and immediately lit up with a big smile on his face. 

All his friends, Benny, Metalbeard, Ultrakatty, Batman, Lucy, and even Watevra, were waiting for him. They all turned to him in unison, and he put a hand on his hip and struck a pose with a confident smile.

"So, what do you guys think?" 

Benny, Watevra and Metalbeard all gave impressed 'oos' as they looked at Rex's outfit, whilst Ultrakatty excitedly bounced on the spot, and Lucy just smiled and shook her head.

Rex chuckled and then came to stand next to one of the couches they were sat on. 

"So how's life up here in the VIP box, huh? Everything alright for you guys?"

Benny finished slurping an ice frappé he was drinking and floated up excitedly. 

"Oh yeah! It's great in here Rex! They can bring drinks and snacks to us whenever we want!" 

"And this speaker system? Great quality." Batman noted, as he nodded in appreciation. 

"Aye. And this be a most advantageous view as well." Metalbeard said as he leaned on the railing on the balcony and looked down into the arena pit.

"And how exactly did you even get us all this only a week before the fight Rex?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah? I mean before you gave me the VIP one, I had to book my normal ticket a month in advance just to be sure I'd get in!" Ultrakatty exclaimed. Rex casually shrugged as he walked over to the coffee table in the middle of the room and dropped his duffel bag on it.

"Well, when you're one of the two fighters competing in the highest earning, most anticipated fight of the season, you get a few perks. The owner couldn't exactly say no to me. For one thing, I've never been demanding and asked anything from him before, and another is he didn't want to risk me quitting on him for not giving me what I wanted."

"You threatened to quit?" Ultrakatty shockingly asked.

"Eh, it was just a bluff! I knew he'd fold. He had to cancel this reservation for, what I'm sure was, a very pissed off group to get this for me, but that's a very small price to pay really. Who knows how much more he's earning off me tonight."

Rex then walked around and sat down on the couch in the spot between Lucy and Watevra that they'd opened up for him. Watevra had shapeshifted to look like a raptor-like dinosaur, and wore some spiked apocalypse gear as a way to fit in and disguise herself. The Queen of the Systar System wasn't exactly supposed to be seen out at a rough place like this. She did have a reputation she needed to uphold, after all.

"Hey! Nice to see you could make it too, Watev's!" Rex said with a smile. She looked at him excitedly and clapped her hands together.

"Oh I could  _ not _ miss this! Unikitty told me all about it. Sure, maybe it's a bit more dusty and Apocalypty than I'm used to, but she made it sound so exciting! And there was no way I was gonna miss my Padre winning that big ol' trophy, and becoming a super cool champion!"

"Ha ha! You got  _ that _ right!" He laughed.

"So do you really think you can win Rex?" Benny asked. 

"Oh I don't think, I  _ know! _ I've busted up every other tin can they've thrown at me, how much harder can this one be?"

He said it with such self assured cockyness that the others agreed with him, but Lucy wasn’t so sure. 

She’d learnt to take some of Rex’s boasting with a pinch of salt. Yes, nothing he said was ever usually an outright lie, but he did like to over exaggerate. He had done very well in his last fight, but this was apparently the  _ championship, _ which meant it would be harder than any of the others he’d faced before. His confidence could be a great tool to psych himself up and overcome his problems, but it could just as easily get him into trouble when he bit off more than he could chew. 

Still, she supposed she’d find out how it would go soon enough. She just hoped Rex wouldn’t get hurt like he had the last time...

  
  


_ "Attention lovers of carnage! The fight will begin in 10 minutes! So get in your seats and ready for the grand finale to a truly exciting season of The Pit Bash Bout!" _

Everyone looked up at the nearby speakers as the announcer’s voice blared through them. 

"Looks like that's my que. I better get going. You guys enjoy those VIP passes! I'll be sure to look out for you during the fight."

Rex got up and turned to leave, but Lucy reached out and grabbed a hold of his hand to stop him. He looked back at her and she pulled his arm, making him bend down slightly. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before leaning back and smiling at him.

"Good luck Rex."

As she let go, he raised a hand to his cheek and touched the spot she’d just kissed in disbelief. 

“Thanks Luce…” He said breathlessly, as a big, dorky smile grew on his face. 

  
  


\-----

  
  


Rex stood behind a closed gate as smoke from a smoke machine billowed around him. The announcer bigged him up before he made his entrance, but he wasn’t really concentrating on it. He was too focused on the fact that this time his friends would be watching him fight. Yeah, apparently Ultrakatty and Lucy had already seen him fight, but he hadn’t known about it at the time, so he hadn’t been worried. This time  _ all  _ of his friends were here and watching him, and he knew it. And that made him a little more apprehensive than he normally felt.

Yeah he had enough experience and skill to probably win, but now he felt more like he had to. He wanted to impress all his friends, show them just how good of a fighter he could really be when he didn't have to hold back.

He wanted to prove to them that he wasn't some adorable little pacifist who'd just take a back seat to trouble anymore. He had to show them how tough he could really be when it counted. If anything as bad as the apocalypse or TAKOs Tuesday happened again, they had to know he could defend them. 

They had to know he was strong enough to  _ never _ let them be taken from him,  _ ever again. _

  
  


It was then that the gate started to open. It shrieked upwards, and more smoke billowed out. Rex gave himself a calming breath and tucked away all his thoughts. They were all important, but now he had to focus. He had to visualise his success. 

All he had to do was fight a robot.

Simple as that.

  
  


He ran forward through the smoke and out into the pit. He decided, as his friends were here, to show off a little more than usual and do a particularly flashy move. He did a spinning leap high into the air, flipping end over end, until he came down and landed in a dramatic superhero-like pose. As dust kicked up from the small crater he'd made, he looked up at his friends in the sky box with a cocky smile.

They all cheered and whooped at him supportively, and he found himself feeling all the more confident as he rose to his full height.

  
  


_ "Danger Fist has come a long way folks. Not many other non-robot fighters have even made it this far. But can he succeed where all others have failed? Will this be the night a human finally becomes a grand champion of The Pits?!" _ The announcer excitedly exclaimed.

The crowd quietened a bit, but over their chatter, Rex heard the overlapping shouts of his friends from their sky box.

"That be a most idiotic question!"

"Yeah 'cause he's awesome!"

"Of course he can!"

"You get 'em Padre!"

"Kick its ass bro!"

"You got this babe!!!" Lucy shouted, a few seconds after the others. Rex smiled at them all warmly. But then his attention was diverted away, as another one of the gates rose and shrieked open across the pit from him.

_ "Well there's just one more thing standing in his way. And that thing is…" _

Rex got into a fighting stance and raised his fists at the ready.

_ "OCTO-BOT!!!" _

Then, a giant robot octopus, almost akin to a metallic kraken, slithered out of the gate and into the open. It had eight pipe-like tentacles that had covered plated segments, two red eyes on either side of its body, and a sharp beak at the bottom of its face.

It screeched at Rex threateningly, but he glared at it and let out an intimidating roaring yell of his own. 

The crowd screamed and cheered for him, before starting a countdown in time with the announcer.

And then, the championship bout began.

  
  


Rex ran at the robot, as it crawled towards him. Its tentacles writhed menacingly and whipped at Rex as he got near them. But he was too fast, too pumped up, to be caught. 

He bobbed and weaved through the tangled mess of metallic appendages, dodging, jumping and kicking out the way of anything that came at him.

He reached the robot's body, its beak snapped as it screeched at him. He jumped up on top of it, snapping it shut and giving a quick punch to the middle of its face. It slithered back a bit in surprise, and Rex took advantage. 

He jumped up again, landing at the base of a tentacle and striking it with an overhead roundhouse kick. Metal and wires smashed apart as the tentacle was cleaved from the robot's body. 

  
  


Up in the sky box, the others yelled encouragingly at Rex's triumph. All of them felt adrenaline pumping excitement at the fast action, and the almost effortless way Rex galavanted around and fought.

He landed a bit away from the robot and looked up at his friends as they cheered him on, giving them a small wave.

But whilst he was distracted, the robot had recovered. It let out a screech, and Rex turned back to face it a moment too late.

  
  


Two tentacles shot forward at Rex. One slammed into his ribs, whilst the other hit him right in the middle of his face. They both pushed him backwards hard and sent him careening towards the edge of the pit, as his feet dragging on the ground made deep tracks in the sand. 

He was slammed with great force into the concrete wall at the edge of the pit. His back and head made contact with the rock hard surface and he shouted out in shock. The fast momentum of it all meant that the force of the tentacles had transferred the rest of the impact right into Rex's torso once he'd stopped at the wall. Which caused him to feel a particularly sudden pain in his ribs. 

The robot then removed its appendages and retreated momentarily, assessing its damage to Rex from a safe distance. 

Rex swayed as he stood. One of his hands shot up to hold the back of his aching head, whilst the other grasped at his sore rib cage. He staggered from side to side, his vision going slightly blurry as the world wobbled around him. 

He fell forward to his knees as he held his head tighter, feeling a sharp spike of pain at the base of his skull.

The crowd gasped and booed, as Rex's friends watched on worryingly. 

Ultrakatty tried shouting over the crowd to get his attention.

"Come on! You can do it Rex! Don't give up!"

He turned his head slightly in her direction as he caught the sound of her voice through the crowd. He lifted one knee up, fighting through his disorientation to try and stand. 

The brunt of the pain from the impact had subsided a bit, but it was still making him move rather slowly.

Lucy stared at him intently with concern, but then a sudden movement from the other side of the pit caught her eye.

"REX! WATCH OUT!" She shouted from the sky box.

Quickly he looked up in front of him. Another tentacle was heading right at him. He rose to his feet in an instant, trying to ignore his dizziness, as he threw a punch and knocked the tentacle out the way just in time. It crumpled and broke under his blow, but that just made the robot dart another undamaged one at him.

He dodged to the side and grabbed the end of it with his right hand, holding it tightly and stopping it from moving.

He then gritted his teeth and pulled hard on it, digging his feet into the sand as he slowly stalked backwards. The robot tried to move back and pull its tentacle away, but Rex was too strong and had too firm of a hold on it.

Metal at the base of the tentacle creaked and groaned, threatening to come apart and separate the whole thing from its body.

Seeing what Rex was trying to do, it came up with a plan.

It shot a tentacle out around the side, and before Rex could react, it had wrapped the end of it around his waist and torso. Rex looked down at it in surprise as it suddenly lifted him up high into the air.

With him distracted by that, the tentacle he was holding in his right hand suddenly curled around his whole arm, making him instinctively let go of it. He turned to look at it, feeling it constrict around his right hand and arm, getting tighter and tighter.

He tried pulling his arm away, but the robot had an increasingly tight, crushing hold on it.

He then felt the one around his waist constrict too, as it slowly started to pull his body away from the tentacle holding his arm. At the same time, he saw the tentacle pull away his right arm in the opposite direction as well. 

All too late he realised what it was trying to do. In a frantic panic he tried batting against the tentacle, punching and clawing at it, but he was too unfocused to do any significant damage.

It pulled his arm out completely straight, crushing his right hand in an unyielding hold. Static spikes of pain darted up and through him.

  
  


His right arm was pulled as far as it could possibly go.

  
  


And then it was pulled even more.

  
  


He felt something in his shoulder go. Something moved in a way it  _ really wasn't _ supposed to. 

  
  


And a massive spike of agonising pain shot through him.

  
  


_ "AHAHAHAHAHA!!!  _ ** _OOOWWWEEE!!!_ ** _ " _ He screamed out in a very surprised high pitch.

The robot stopped moving, and the crowd whispered with shocked and concerned gasps. 

Rex's friends leapt up from their seats and got close to the edge of the balcony, leaning over the railing as much as they possibly could. They were all terrified for him, but Lucy was especially panicked.

Rex stayed very,  _ very _ still as he gasped through the searing pain from his shoulder. His left hand slowly clawed at the tentacle around his waist. He stared down at the ground far below him blankly, unable to do or focus on anything but his pain.

He panted hard from the sheer amount of effort it took just to keep from screaming. Slowly he turned his head to look at the robot. It's red eyes squinted at him, in a look that Rex could only interpret as confident satisfaction that it had beaten him.

But it hadn't.

Not yet.

Rex was down, but he was not out. And he wasn't about to let some smug, bastard robot show him up in front of all this crowd, in front of his  _ friends! _ He had to beat it. He had to do it for  _ them. _ He had to show them he could do it. He didn't want them to see him as someone who was weak, as someone who still needed saving even after all this time. He wanted to prove that he was someone who could save  _ them, _ no matter what he was up against. And he didn't want to lose and sour what was supposed to be a fun night of triumph that he and they could all happily celebrate together.

So he gritted his teeth. He balled his left hand into a tight fist. He focused on all of that, and on his pain, and he let it fuel him. He purposely let it make him mad, get him angry, get him furious.

  
  


He growled quietly, but that got louder and louder, morphing and twisting into a furious yell that was a chaotic mix of anger and pain. He raised his left fist high above him and screamed as he brought it down on the tentacle around his arm, delivering a debilitating master breaker punch that instantly shattered the tentacle to pieces. 

With his right arm freed, but worryingly unable to move, he brought his fist down again and obliterated the other tentacle that held him around his waist.

With nothing to hold him up, he fell seven feet through the air, landing with a crouch on the sandy ground below. 

The sudden deceleration and impact of his landing violently jostled his shoulder, making him shout out in shock. 

He hunkered down for a minute whilst the robot was too busy reeling from his attack to do anything. He put his left fist between his body and his right arm to take some of the pressure off, and relive a tiny amount of pain. Slowly he stood and rose to his full height, looking down at his shoulder. Despite it being partly obscured by his spiked shoulder pad, he could visibly see (and also  _ feel _ ) that something was  _ very wrong _ with it.

His friends looked down at him from the sky box in silence, before Watevra gulped and spoke up with great worry.

"Uh. Human shoulders aren't supposed to be lopsided like that, are they?" She asked as she looked at Batman. He nodded 'no' at her silently as he kept his eyes on Rex.

Lucy looked down at him with baited breath, waiting for him to say or do absolutely anything. But he didn't. He just stood there silently looking at his arm. And for some reason that deafening silence made her more terrified than if he'd reacted in any other way at all. 

  
  


The robot creaked and whirred angrily behind Rex, trying to inch its way towards him with its few remaining tentacles. 

Rex turned around and growled at it in anger. He started walking towards it slowly, stunning his friends and the rest of the crowd equally. He picked up the pace, running faster and faster, getting angrier and angrier as the movement aggravated his wounds. As he reached the robot, he leapt up high into the air raising his left fist and pulling it back, before diving down towards the robot with a roar of rage.

The result as he crashed down was a master breaker punch so strong, so fuelled by his feelings of pain and determination to win, that he set off a cascade of destruction that obliterated the rest of the robot in an implosion of crushed chunks of scrap metal. 

A cloud of dust kicked up and darkened the whole pit for a moment, until it slowly started to dissipate.

  
  


Dust parted around Rex as he slowly walked through it and out into the open. His right arm was completely slack at his side, some of the fingers on his right hand rested at slightly weird angles, but he just looked up at his friends in the sky box with a determined frown that had a slight hint of a pleased smile. 

As the dust finally disappeared and revealed the utterly decimated form of the Octo-bot, the crowd erupted into a cacophony of thunderous applause and cheers.

Rex waved up at his friends with a small smile and a slight shrug of his uninjured shoulder. They looked down at him with fairly relieved smiles as they cheered and waved back at him. Ultrakatty in particular roared and jumped and cheered with such reckless abandon, that Metalbeard had to hold her back so she didn't fall over the edge of the balcony by accident.

Lucy was still incredibly concerned about Rex's injuries, but as he looked up at her with that little smile of his that showed just how pleased with himself he was, she couldn't help but lovingly smile back at him. 

He lit up even more at that, looking incredibly touched.

  
  


Then, the Announcer walked out into the pit with a large, golden trophy in his hand. He stood beside Rex and held it up high for the whole crowd to see, as he held his microphone in his other hand. 

"WHAT A FIGHT! Danger Fist, we know you're a man of few words, but do you have anything to say about becoming the first ever, non-robot Grand Champion of The Pits?"

Rex looked around at the crowd, then at his friends, then back down at the mic.

"I just came here to have fun and kick some ass!" 

The crowd cheered at him, making him feel all the more humble and confident. 

"I never expected to get this far. And if it hadn't been for the great reception from the fans, I probably wouldn't have."

People whooped and clapped in appreciation as Rex looked around at them. But then he saw his friends, and them cheering along to his words warmed his heart more than anything else possibly could. 

"But most importantly, I'd really like to thank my friends, my  _ family, _ for coming out today to support me. You guys never gave up on me. I've never felt more motivated, than seeing you guys here cheering for me. I'm really lucky to have you all."

His eyes watered as he beamed at them warmly. If you'd asked him directly, he probably would have shrugged it off and blamed any tears on his painful wounds. But that wasn't true. And he could at least admit to himself, that those tears in his eyes were just because he was so utterly happy with the fact he had so many special people in his life, who truly cared for him again.

"Would you look at that folks! Not only is he a skilled fighter, but a skilled speaker as well! Is there nothing you can't do Danger Fist?!" The announcer rhetorically exclaimed. Rex looked down at his right arm and gave it a gentle prod. 

"Well I can't really feel my right arm now, so…"

The announcer laughed, and gave Rex a hearty slap on his back. Rex was barely able to hold back a grunt of pain as the impact jostled his already incredibly sore shoulder.

"Give him a hand folks! This Champion has earned a good rest!"

As the crowd cheered again, a couple of medical staff came out into the pit and gently guided Rex towards one of the gates where a gurney was waiting for him.

The crowd chanted his name and just before the gate closed, he turned back towards the sky box, smiling widely and raising his left fist in the air triumphantly as he looked on at his friends.

  
  


\-----

  
  


"Why is this taking so  _ loooonnnngggg?" _ Watevra whined, leaning over Batman's shoulder dramatically as they sat next to each other on the floor.

All of Rex's friends were sat along the corridor just outside the arena infirmary. They'd been waiting there for well over two hours now, without a word from anyone as to how Rex was doing. They were all growing rather impatient with worry. Lucy had even started pacing back and forth right next to the doors, and hadn't stopped at all for the last 10 minutes.

"You don't think they had to do surgery, do you?" Benny asked curiously. Watevra dropped her bratish pout in an instant and worriedly looked at him.

"Was he really hurt that bad?" She asked.

"That mechanised foe did get him good…" Metalbeard nodded solemnly. Ultrakatty scoffed at the three of them. 

"Yeah well, Rex got him better!  _ EEE!!! I can't believe I'm friends with the grand champion!!! _ Ooh! Sherry's gonna be  _ so _ jealous!!" She gleefully exclaimed.

"It's great that he won, but those robots can get put back together in a snap and don't feel pain. Rex doesn't have that luxury…" Benny observed.

"He was able to walk it off though!" Ultrakatty pointed out.

"There's a big difference between walking away right after a fight, whilst you're still pumped up on adrenaline, and actually feeling your injuries once they hit you. There's no telling how bad he actually is till they let us in." Batman knowingly informed them. Watevra turned blue with worry and hugged him nervously. He put his arms around her and patted her reassuringly. 

Lucy stopped her pacing and growled with agitation. She was already worried enough for Rex as it was, but all their speculation was just making her imagine more and more worst case scenarios that she was finding harder and harder to ignore.

"If they don't let at least one of us in soon, I have half a mind to break down that  _ damn  _ ** _door!!!"_ ** Lucy loudly shouted as she smacked her fist against the wall.

The rest of them looked at her and quietened in an instant. 

They waited in silence again for about 10 more minutes, before a tall, lanky nurse (the same one that Lucy had seen tending to Rex's leg after his last fight) opened the door and let them all in.

  
  


As they all followed the nurse inside, they quickly spotted Rex lying propped upright on one of the beds. It was a sight that made all of them, but especially Lucy, frown with worry.

Rex was hooked up to an IV drip that ran down to his left wrist, as well as a heart monitor that beeped in the quiet room at a steady, even pace. A blanket covered him up to his waist, but above that the doctors had needed to remove his shirt so they could wrap his sore rib cage and a large number of small cuts and bruises in bandages. His right hand and forearm was in a hard, red cast, and his arm and shoulder were supported by a thick foam sling. 

They'd also had to let his hair down to clean a small graze on the back of his head, and just to be on the safe side, they'd also made him wear an oxygen mask to help him recover as smoothly as possible.

He stared up at the ceiling blankly, looking incredibly tired and dazed as he slowly breathed in and out. 

When he finally took notice of his friends' presence, he turned his head towards them and lit up with a small smile (which was all that he could manage without aggravating his bruised face). 

"Hey guys…" He weakly said.

The others all gathered closely around his bed, trying their best to keep their concern off their faces. Lucy made her way to his left side so she could stand by the head of his bed. Watevra then looked at his right arm in particular and hissed through her teeth.

"Oof! That looks like it hurts!" 

Rex laughed as he perked up a bit more.

"Ha ha! Probably would if I wasn't totally dosed up on painkillers!"

He grinned at her, but she still seemed very concerned, and as he looked around at the others, he realised they were all the same too. 

"Guys… This really isn't as bad as it looks, trust me! Most of this is just bruises that are gonna heal up in a week or two. It's only really this arm and shoulder that are gonna take longer, but it's no big deal! Really!" He tried to reassure them. Some of them felt a little better about that, but Watevra and Lucy were still quite unconvinced.

"What exactly happened with your arm anyway?" Benny asked, nervously tapping his hands together. Rex turned to him.

"Turns out that robot squeezed it a bit too tight when it was pulling me. Ended up dislocating my shoulder joint and fracturing a few hand bones. But I was lucky. The Doc scanned me with some Systarian thingy and said the ligaments we're fine, or something, so they only needed to pop the joint back in place. Hurt like hell, but it's better than surgery." He casually answered, like he was just talking about the weather instead of his serious injuries. 

Unfortunately that didn't make any of them feel much better. So Rex tried his best to lighten the mood.

"But hey! Look on the bright side guys! You could all sign my cast tomorrow or something? That'd be fun, right? Then I could keep it and see all your nice messages whenever I want!"

Ultrakatty lit up a little at that, but still looked unsure.

"Could we put some glitter on it…?" She hesitantly asked, as she gently rested her head on the edge of the bed. Rex smiled at her warmly and gave her a reassuring pat with his left hand. 

"'Course we could…" 

She perked up, and was going to ask him about different kinds of glitter and what they could all draw on his cast.

  
  


But just then, a stern looking woman in a white jacket walked up to them and caught all their attention with a curt tutt. 

  
  


"Time's up Mr Brickowski. Your friends will have to leave and come back tomorrow."

"Can't at least one of us stay with him overnight?" Lucy asked, as she grabbed Rex's left hand and held it in both of hers.

"Hey, I'm running a medical ward here, not a hotel! You think just because you won a trophy I'm gonna let you break the rules?" She gruffly said as she frowned at Rex. He put on a sly grin and tried turning on the charm. 

"C'mon Doc! I'm the only patient you have in here! It's not like she'd be taking up much space!"

She glared at him as she thought about it, but Rex just smiled innocently at her with big, pleading, Emmet-like eyes as he tilted his head towards Lucy and held her hand tighter. She caught onto his idea and did the same, and even the Doc and her stoic heart was unable to refuse them both.

_ "...Fine. _ But if she gets in the way of me doing my job for even a second, I'm kicking her out and she'll have to come back from 9-5 like everyone else." 

Rex chuckled a little and smiled at her, happy that weaponising his cuteness had worked.

"Thanks Doc, your the best!"

Doc turned and grumbled away to her office, leaving Rex and the others alone. 

"See you guys tomorrow?" He softly asked with a sheepish smile. 

"Of course." Ultrakatty said with a gentle paw touch to his leg to reassure him. The others nodded as well and he felt a warm fuzziness in his heart. He wished he didn’t have to wait to see them all again, but logically he knew they couldn’t all stay with him. 

“Go on. You better all get out of here before the Doc gets back. She is not a patient woman, lemme tell ya. She finds you still in here then  _ you’ll  _ be the ones needing to stay in one of these beds overnight!” 

They all chuckled, feeling a bit more assured by Rex's chipper attitude.

“Alright Rex, see you tomorrow!” Ultrakatty cheerfully said.

She and the rest of his friends turned to leave, waving to him as they all said goodbye.

"Bye!"

"Later bro."

"Toodles Padre!"

"Till the morrow, matey!"

  
  


Once they were all gone, and the doors had closed shut, Rex turned back to face Lucy. The two of them were left alone together in silence. The chipper light in Rex's eyes faded slightly, but he still looked up at Lucy with a warm, yet obviously exhausted, smile.

  
  


"Hey…" He weakly said. Lucy turned around and grabbed a nearby chair, before placing it next to the head of his bed and sitting down.

_ "Hey…" _ She said back, as she took his left hand in hers and held it tight. He glanced away momentarily, before looking back at her sadly.

"Sorry I got my ass kicked… I know that probably worried you."

She slowly lifted her right hand to gently hold his face, avoiding his oxygen mask and being incredibly mindful of his sore bruises. 

"Did you have fun?" She asked with a weak smile.

"Yeah, a bit. Could have done without having to spend a couple days in here though."

They both glanced at his right arm with concern, before Lucy tried to lighten the mood. 

"Yeah, well, consider it part of your punishment." She snarkily said in a sassy voice.

_ "Punishment?" _ He worriedly questioned. She grinned at him with a cheeky smile.

"If you think I'm gonna let you out of my sight for even a moment, so you can go off and do something else reckless, then you are sorely mistaken mister!" She laughed.

  
  


But Rex just stared down at his feet, and spoke in a hushed, soft voice.

"Things did get a bit too heated tonight, didn't they?"

She paused and her smile fell, as memories of her earlier worries returned to her.

"Yeah they kinda did. It was… scary, to be honest. I was  _ terrified _ for you."

He turned his head further away, closing his eyes as he frowned in shame.

"You could have stopped Rex. You didn't need to carry on like that, especially after you got so hurt."

He looked back at her quickly with pleading eyes.

"But I did it. I won, didn't I? I didn't get hurt much more by going that little bit further."

She could see winning had meant a lot to him, but she wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe it was just because he wanted to show off for her and their friends, or maybe it was because he wanted to prove how tough he was.

But whatever the reason, she didn't think it was worth it for all the danger he'd put himself in and how hurt he'd ended up.

She tried smiling at him reassuringly, but he could easily see through it. He just knew her too well. 

He knew she'd rather he'd have lost and been unharmed, than win and end up so injured.

"But you are right though. I probably should have stopped. I never wanted to make you worried like that."

He really didn't. He hated seeing her so scared. He only ever wanted happiness for her. So to see her so terrified because of him, and his stupid actions, just made him feel all the more guilty.

She'd lost him once already. He knew how devastated  _ he'd _ be if something happened to  _ her,  _ so he could only understand all too well how it must have felt to be in her shoes right now.

She couldn't lose him again.

But he'd put himself at such stupid, pointless risk and gotten badly hurt. Something worse could have easily happened to him. He realised that now. And he also realised he could never,  _ ever _ make her worry because of him doing something like that,  _ ever again. _

"Which is why I think in the future, way after I'm all healed and stuff, I'm just gonna stick to the small fights here. I'm not gonna go for the championship again. It's too dangerous, and it kinda stops being so much fun after an ass-whooping like this. No more epic giant robot battles for Rex Brickowski, amirite?"

She was surprised at that, but also utterly, utterly touched.

"I think that sounds like a sensible idea. By your standards anyway…"

He chuckled and looked up at her with a tired, sweet smile.

She cupped his cheek a little tighter at that, but it made him grimace him pain. So she took her hand away from his face immediately and instead moved it to rest on top of his head. His face was still scrunched up slightly (as much as he could without aggravating his bruises), so she started stroking his hair soothingly as she held his left hand in hers a little tighter. 

He closed his eyes right away at her gentle touch, and it, coupled with all his exhaustion and pain, made him instantly fall asleep.

She continued, even when she saw his breathing slow and could hear his quiet, gentle snoring. She smiled at him, and his utterly peaceful face, lovingly.

  
  


"You are a giant, reckless, idiot… But I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> :>
> 
> Ok so, maaaaybe I was a bit mean to Rex in this one... But I think you all know how I work by now. Where there's angst, they'll be fluff to come to balance things out. So trust me, this is gonna end up being a good thing... >;)


	15. House Arrest

Rex woke up in his own bed at home to various different aches and pains coming from all over his body. He glanced over to his alarm clock, seeing it was currently 6:05am. That was a lot earlier than he'd wanted to get up. For the past two days he'd been back home after being treated at the arena infirmary, he'd planned on not setting an alarm like he usually did and instead tried to sleep in as late as he could to help him recover quicker. But unfortunately, whilst that had been a very reasonable plan, his body decided it didn't want to cooperate. The past two nights at home, without fail, the painkillers he'd been taking before bed always wore off at some point during his sleep, meaning he kept waking up early and annoyed.

He huffed in slight frustration, before looking over the two walls of pillows he'd made on either side of him (to help make sure he stayed on his back and didn't roll over onto his arm in his sleep) and saw something had fallen on the floor. 

He carefully sat up, his joints feeling rather stiff and his sore bruises twinging slightly from the movement, and pushed one of the pillow walls out of the way with his left hand. 

He let his legs fall over the edge of the bed and slowly bent down to pick the thing up.

In his hand, he held a teddy bear. It was a green dinosaur in a little doctor's outfit that had an adorable little smile on its face. Rex looked at it lovingly and hugged it to his chest as he stood up, feeling a bit better than when he'd first woken up. 

Unikitty had brought it to him on her first visit to the infirmary as a get well soon present. It had been very sweet of her. And despite the fact that a cute little teddy bear might not be what you'd expect a tough, arena gladiator like him to have, he really didn't care. He loved it. It was adorable, and super soft, and his friend had gotten it just for him. And that was all that really mattered. 

It was also why he'd started carrying it around with him as much as he could too. Whenever he felt a sharp twang of pain, he just hugged his teddy (which he'd since dubbed 'Dr Dino') and he felt at least a little bit better. 

  


He walked out of his room, yawning as he made his way to the kitchen, hugging Dr Dino tightly in his left arm. He grabbed a glass of water and some pain killers from the medicine cupboard, before he walked back to the living room and sat down on the bottom of the double decker couch. 

He carefully placed Dr Dino down next to him, and then popped a couple of pills out the packet (which was a little tricky to do with only his left hand) and took a sip of water to chase them down.

As he sat back on the couch and waited for them to take effect, he looked over at one of the nearby shelves. On it, were a number of different things his friends had gotten him as get well soon gifts. Watevra had gotten him a vivid bouquet that made a rainbow of flowers, that rested in a big, fancy glass vase right in the middle of the shelf. Benny had given him a tiny piece of meteorite that he'd thought looked kind of like a fist. Metalbeard had made him a tiny ship in a bottle. And Lucy had put a dumb photo of him in a picture frame, that jokingly said  _ 'World's most badass dumbass!' _ on it.

He chuckled as he looked at that in particular. He couldn't exactly say it wasn't accurate. 

And of course, each and every one of them had bought, or even made him in some cases, a card. 

It made him happy that they cared so much about him to go to all that trouble. And as he looked down at the cast on his arm and all the little doodles and messages on it, he found himself become less and less aware of all his aches and pains.

  
  


\-----

  
  


"I am so BORED!" Rex loudly complained. He laid propped up on the couch with a few pillows supporting his right arm to keep it at the right angle, and also take some pressure off of his neck instead of having the whole weight of his sling pulling on it.

Lucy was sat at the opposite end of the couch to Rex, idly scrolling through the internet on her phone and texting with Metalbeard about something he and Benny had started working on. 

"Weren't you having a Star Trek marathon? Why not continue that?" She asked, keeping her eyes on her screen.

"I can't. I finished it." He pouted.

She glanced up at him, pausing her texting for a moment.

"Then move onto one of the other series. You finished DS9, go onto- what is it?- Voyager next or something?" She asked with wide, unsure gestures. He scoffed and let his head fall back on the sofa.

_ "Urgh _ . I don't wanna watch more space stuff. It makes me wanna go there and well-"

He paused, looking up at her and gesturing to his right arm poignantly. 

"-I  _ can't." _ He said whilst scowling at her in annoyance.

She frowned back at him.

He'd started doing  _ a lot _ of complaining for the past day or so. And quite frankly, despite wanting to be as considerate to him as possible, she was getting a bit sick of it. Obviously he was dealing with a lot of pain, which understandably made him complain, but the problem was he kept complaining and every time she offered to help, he shot her down and went off to sulk and struggle on with whatever he had to do himself.

It was an incredibly annoying cycle. 

One that  _ could  _ have been avoided if he hadn't pushed himself so much in the fight last week. 

"Well that's not  _ my _ fault, now  _ is it?" _ She snapped back at him.

_ "URGH! I know!!" _ He growled loudly as he smacked his left fist into the sofa cushion.

He scowled down at the floor for a moment, before he took a deep breath and sighed.

"I'm gonna go make some coffee…" He grumbled as he pushed the pillows out of the way and stood to walk to the kitchen.

Lucy sighed and looked back at her phone, planning to leave him to his own devices. But just as she finished tapping out another message, she glanced up at the doorway he'd disappeared through, and found she couldn't just let him struggle on his own. So she decided to get up and follow him.

  
  


When she reached the kitchen, she hung back in the doorway and decided to observe him from a distance. He'd definitely say no to her help if she offered it right away, but she still wanted to be there to be able to step in if needed.

Rex had already boiled the kettle and brought it over to the counter right next to the fridge where he had a mug waiting. This one, that he'd actually picked entirely at random, had an orange T-Rex on it that looked rather perturbed as it looked at its tiny, adorably drawn arms underneath a message that read  _ 'Licensed to carry small arms'. _

He held up his left arm and poured the boiling hot water into the mug, before putting the kettle back down and grabbing a spoon to stir the coffee and sugar into the mug. 

Lucy thought about heading back to the lounge, as Rex seemed to be doing fairly well making coffee with just one functioning arm, but she hesitated a moment longer.

He pried open the fridge door and held it open with his foot, as he grabbed a jug of milk and put it onto the worktop. Kicking the door shut, he then tried to unscrew the lid of the milk. He twisted the top, but it didn't open. It stayed on tight no matter how much force he put on it. He growled in irritation and tried to use the strength from his whole arm to open it, instead of just his wrist, but that just made the jug slide across the worktop as he couldn't hold it still with his injured hand.

Finally he managed to unscrew the lid, but unfortunately the force he'd used to do that made the jug slide wildly and fall onto its side, spilling milk all over the worktop and dripping it down the side of the counter and onto the floor. 

He shouted out in a burst of anger and without thinking, immediately tried to ball his right hand into a fist (which he did as much as his cast would allow) and banged his injured right arm down on the worktop.

He gasped out at the sudden spike of pain that shot through his arm and shoulder. He turned to the side quickly, trying to grab a hold of his right arm to secure it and help stop its aching. But as he moved, his right elbow hit the mug and knocked it off the counter and onto the floor.

It smashed instantly. 

As all his frustrations reached the tipping point, Rex stomped his foot angrily and clutched his arm tighter as he yelled out.

_ "ARGH!  _ ** _SHIT!!!"_ **

  
  


He hissed through his teeth, keeping as still as he could as he rode out the wave of pain from his shoulder and tried to calm himself down.

After a minute or so, he sighed and moved to crouch down so he could grab the broken pieces off the floor. But before he could, Lucy put a hand against his chest and stopped him. 

"Rex, stop. I'll clean this up."

He frowned and looked down at the mess again.

"I'm  _ fine! _ I can do this." He gruffly grumbled.

But Lucy wasn't having that.

"Oh just go sit down already why don't you?!" She said with a somewhat forceful shove in the direction of the breakfast nook.

He looked very surprised and incredibly offended, but he did what she said and skulked over to the breakfast nook to sit down in one of the booths. 

  
  


Lucy crouched down and started gathering up the broken pieces, placing them on the worktop next to her so she could safely put them in the bin later. But then as she got up and grabbed a washcloth to start cleaning up the spilled coffee, she noticed Rex scowling down at the mess on the floor with his left hand tightly balled into a fist and resting on the table.

She sighed and put the cloth back down as she turned to face Rex with her arms crossed. 

"Rex, I'm not a mind reader you know. If you don't tell me exactly what is frustrating you, how am I supposed to help? That is- if you'll even  _ let _ me help!" 

He looked further away from her, sulking harder. She walked a little closer to him to try and grab his attention as she confronted him.

"Just stop with all this macho bullshit for  _ one second _ and tell me what's wrong."

Finally he looked up at her. A grumpy scowl still rested on his face.

"I'm pissed off…"

Well, that was a start at least.

"At…?" She prompted, waiting for him to reply. He was quiet for a moment, before he growled and irritably snapped.

"At the fact I can't do  _ ANYTHING!" _

He ran his left hand through his hair in frustration, before wildly gesturing with it.

"Can't make a cup of coffee, can't cut up my own food, can't play video games, can't go out because  _ you _ won't let me use my bike or my skateboard, I can't even take a damn shower without having to shove my  _ damn hand _ into a plastic bag and keep holding my arm up in just the right position!!!" He shouted.

He sighed and lost the angered edge on his voice, replacing it with a softer but still incredibly irritated tone.

"All I can do is sit on my ass in constant pain and watch TV, and I'm  _ sick _ of it! I'm an active guy! I need variety, exercise, excitement! I don't  _ like _ feeling so confined in my own home! I've only been stuck like this for a little over a week and I'm already going stir-crazy! How am I supposed to last another three weeks, at the absolute  _ minimum _ , like this?!"

  
  


Obviously Lucy had noticed Rex struggling with basic tasks, but she hadn't particularly considered how much it had affected his lifestyle. Pretty much every fun thing he liked to do took both his hands, and adding his shoulder having to recover on top of that, he wouldn't be able to do anything he really wanted to do for weeks. Even once his hand had healed enough to have the cast come off so he could use it again, he wouldn't be allowed to do anything super physical (like the heavy weightlifting exercises he usually did every other day) for well over a month, if not longer.

Being stuck in one single place, unable to do much or move freely, was certainly something that she could understandably see bothering Rex.

Although she couldn't exactly make him heal faster to stop any of that. But she could at least try and make the experience less aggravating for him.

  
  


"Well if you just let me do some of the things you can't do for you, and  _ help you, _ you'll get less frustrated overall." She pointed out.

He wasn't convinced yet, his pride and want to be self reliant getting the better of him. Lucy saw that and decided to continue.

"You're strong, you're tough, you don't want to have to depend on someone,  _ I get that! _ That's your whole thing. But it's not weak to ask for help when you're struggling. It doesn't make you any less of a tough guy.  _ Just- _ let me  _ help you _ with some things, alright? Then you'll get less pissed off and grouchy, which will make me less annoyed too, and the both of us can get through this with a lot less agro and hassle."

He looked up at her and considered all that. He supposed if she didn't see it as that big of a deal, and that her helping him out more would make the both of them less annoyed with everything, then he might as well give it a go. 

"Ok… I guess I can let you do a few things for me…" He conceded.

  
  


\-----

  
  


It had been a mistake.

A huge,  _ massive _ mistake.

What on earth had she done?

What horrible beast had she unleashed???

  
  


_ "Luuuuuuuccccccccccyyyyyyyyy! I need painkillers…." _ Rex whined loudly from the lounge.

  
  


She groaned audibly, running a hand over her face in frustration.

Rex had gone from being a dumb idiot who just  _ had _ to do everything himself despite his struggles, to the most whiny, attention seeking, baby at the flip of a switch. There was no middle ground, no warning, he'd just  _ flipped. _

And now she was stuck with it.

Maybe she should have just left him to his own devices and suffered through it.

_ Anything _ had to have been better than this.

  
  


She finished off making a very complicated smoothie he'd asked for, and then grabbed a box of ibuprofen from the cupboard and headed back into the living room. 

Rex was lying stretched out on the couch, propped up on either side of him by a large number of pillows from both of their bedrooms. He sat in his dinosaur PJ's and had his duvet draped over him as he tightly hugged his Dr Dino plushie with his left arm. He pouted up at her as she came to stand next to him and she had to admit, as she looked at the scene before her, that he did look pathetically adorable.

She placed the smoothie on the table and dropped the box of tablets on his lap. He looked down at them in surprise, before meekly smiling back up at her again.

"Can you get a couple tablets out the box for me?" He asked sweetly.

She looked a little exasperated at that, but he just stared back at her with big, sad eyes.

_ "Pleeeeaaaassssseeee?" _

She sighed as she folded under the power of his sad cuteness and begrudgingly opened up the packet and got two tablets out for him. He took them in his hand, but then looked between them and his smoothie for a moment.

"Can you help give me my drink? I can't hold it and that tablets at the same time." He asked.

She was perplexed at that. Surely he could manage to just take some tablets by himself?

"You can put the tablets in your mouth and  _ then _ give yourself your drink Rex."

He pouted at her sadly. 

"But then they'll melt and I'll taste all that yucky powdery stuff… I can't shove them in and pick up my drink fast enough before they do that…"

She really,  _ really _ didn't see what the big deal was, but yet again, she found it hard to say no to him.

_ "Urgh.  _ Alright…"

She grabbed his drink and held it up, waiting for him to take the tablets, before she put the glass to his lips and lifted it.

He swallowed, but then quickly started coughing. She immediately moved the drink away and put it down on the coffee table.

"That was too much!" He complained once he'd stopped his coughing fit.

"Then do it yourself next time!" She chided. 

He looked rather hurt at that, and she instantly felt bad.

  
  


So she tried to lighten the mood and change the subject to distract him.

"Hey, what do you want for dinner?" She asked with a smile.

  
  


He thought for a moment, before quickly perking up.

"Can we have ice cream?"

Her smile fell. 

"No."

He was taken aback by that.

"But I'm all hurty! And it'd make me feel better!"

She couldn't believe him! Why was he being so ridiculous? What kind of grown man wanted ice cream for dinner like a 5 year old?!

"I said  _ no!" _

"Urgh!  _ I hate you!" _ He grumbled gruffly.

Her patience wore thin at that. She'd had enough. So she decided to get up and leave him to pout for a while.

But as soon as she stood up and turned to leave, he shot his hand out to grab hers and stop her in her tracks.

"Please don't leave me!" He pleaded sweetly in a terrified voice.

She turned back to face him, and saw him looking up at her with the biggest pleading eyes she'd ever seen him do. 

  


And she was powerless to deny him.

"...Ok, fine! You can have ice cream for dinner…"

He lit up considerably and put on a voice that sounded exactly like Emmet as he asked a very cheeky question. 

"Can I have chocolate cookie dough?"

His voice didn't surprise her. He'd already used it a few times this past week when there was something he particularly wanted, because he knew she found it even harder to say no to. And if they'd still had any of that kind of ice cream left, she definitely wouldn't have been able to say no this time. But the circumstances being what they were, she had a perfectly valid reason to deny him. 

"No, you ate the last of that yesterday. You'll have to have something else."

He frowned at her.

"Can't you go out and get some more?"

_ " _ ** _No._ ** _ " _ She firmly denied.

There was no way she was going out into town at rush hour, just to get one little thing that he really shouldn't be having for dinner anyway. She had already given in enough to say he could have ice cream at all. Now he was just really pushing his luck as far as it would go.

  
  


"But  _ Luuuuuuuccccccccccyyyyyyyyy!!!" _ He bratishly whined.

  
  


And that was all it took for her patience to finally run out.

  
  


“Urgh! THAT’S  _ IT! _ Rex- that’s ENOUGH! I’m sorry, but I am  _ not  _ putting up with this anymore!" She snapped as she roughly pulled her hand away from his.

"You've been doing this nonstop for a week straight! It was cute at first, but now it's wearing  _ real _ thin!"

He stared at her in shock. 

"But… You said you wanted to help me…" He sadly said as he frowned and slowly grabbed his plushie to hug against himself again.

She immediately deflated. 

"I did. And I  _ do. _ But-"

He looked back up at her sadly. She didn't want to upset him, but at the same time, she couldn't let him carry on like he had. She had to put her foot down.

"You're kinda really taking the piss babe…"

He stopped pouting at that, listening to her intently with no hint he would go back into whiny baby mode. She continued.

"I'm not your servant, I'm your-"

Wait, what even were they? Friends? Yeah. Roommates? Yeah that was true too. Something… more? 

That… that was something neither of them had outright said yet. And well, now wasn't the time to get into  _ that _ conversation. So she decided to settle on something safe.

  
  


"Your best friend… And the point is I do care about you, and I  _ do _ want to help you, but there  _ has _ to be a  _ reasonable _ limit Rex."

He thought about that, and for the first time in a week, he took a chance to reflect on how he'd been acting.

"...I have been taking it a bit too far, haven't I?"

_ "A  _ ** _bit?_ ** _ " _

He smiled sheepishly.

"Ok,  _ a lot. _ And uh- I'm sorry…"

Smiling back at him in relief, she sat down next to him. 

"It's ok Rex."

She held out her hand to him, and he gently took it in his.

"Just promise me you'll try to be a  _ little less _ demanding from now on."

He squeezed her hand a little tighter.

"Of course Luce. I promise I'll try."

They smiled at each other sweetly, but then Rex's face suddenly changed to a cheeky grin.

"I still want ice cream for dinner though."

She gasped at him and his outrageous cheek, before quickly letting go of his hand to grab one of the pillows beside him and promptly hit him over the head with it. 

He laughed and snorted as he recovered from the soft blow.

"Ok, I deserved that."

"Yup. But you also deserve this too."

She dropped the pillow onto the floor and quickly leaned over to him, snatching his dinosaur plushie out of his lap before quickly turning tail and running out of the room.

"DR DINO!!!" He shouted out in surprise.

As quickly as he could, he wrestled his way out of his duvet and the mountain of pillows to chase after her as she disappeared down the hall laughing loudly.

"If you hurt that dinosaur, I swear I'll end you Lucy!!!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So today's chapter was actually inspired by this post by Shadowfear-art ->  
https://shadowfear-art.tumblr.com/post/186666362164/idea-sickness
> 
> I thought it was an interesting idea that was too fun to pass up! xD But I'd also like to thank Piece-of-Resistance for showing me a clip of sick Barney from How I Met Your Mother, which helped me characterise whiny baby Rex xD It was very fun to do! I had no idea how much fun whiny baby Rex could be and how much I needed that in my life x3 Hopefully you all found it fun too. 
> 
> But he is gonna behave himself after this.


	16. Benny And Metalbeard's Egg-cellent Adventure!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I've been neglecting Metalbeard and Benny a bit in this story...
> 
> So now they get their very own chapter to star in! :D 
> 
> How you enjoy what these two get up to!

Metalbeard ducked through a big set of double doors and walked into a wide open room at the Syspocalypstar Space Center. In it, Benny was sat at a big array of 80's something computers, tapping away on one of the screens. Metalbeard walked up to him, and cleared his throat to get his attention.

“Nice ta see ye Benny.”

Benny stopped his typing and swiveled around in his chair to face Metalbeard.

“It’s good to see you too Metalbeard! So! What was it you wanted my help with anyway?”

Metalbeard pulled over a couple nearby tables and sat down on them before he spoke to Benny.

“It be regarding Rex…”

Benny's wide smile fell as he became worried.

“...What about him? Is he ok?”

“As far as I know, he be recovering fine at home. But he be sending me many a text about his boredom.”

He looked relieved at that, but also nodded in understanding. 

“Yeah, he’s sent me some too. He’s been texting me about his Star Trek marathon he started yesterday. Which has been fun! I always love talking about space stuff with him.”

“Aye. But I be gettin’ the feeling that his confinement be grating on him. So, I were thinkin’ of ways we could make things better for him.”

Benny perked up at that. Rex seemed to really be having a dull time ever since the fight at The Pits, so Benny was perfectly happy to oblige and help cheer his friend up in any way that he could.

“And you wanted my help?”

“Aye.” Metalbeard nodded.

“So what did you come up with?” Benny asked.

Metalbeard was quiet for a moment, before looking up at Benny with intense determination.

“I be wanting ta get him a velociraptor.”

  
  


Benny froze and sat there silently for a few moments. He stared back at Metalbeard, utterly bemused.

“...You  _ what?” _

He shrugged.

“Ya see, I were havin’ a good time with me hearty crew, but I got ta thinking about Rex and his old crew. I know not how ta get that back for him, but I thought perhaps that having another velociraptor to train would be more feasible and be most enjoyable fer him.”

Benny's eye twitched as he stared back at Metalbeard in confused awe, before quickly he exploded and started gesturing wildly.

“Metalbeard, you can’t just go to the pet store and get a velociraptor! We don’t have any here! They're extinct! They were only around like- 65 million years ago or something!”

“Aye. Which be precisely why I came ta ye.” Metalbeard said, calm and collectedly. 

Benny leaned back in his chair and let it scoot back a bit, as he felt more confused than ever.

“I’m not following.”

Metalbeard smirked at him as he thought about his cunning plan.

“I want ye ta help me build a time machine ta bring a velociraptor back from the past ta give ta Rex.” 

_ “You want to build a  _ ** _time machine_ ** _ …?” _ He asked, utterly confused at the ridiculous, impossible idea. But Metalbeard just nodded back at him.

“Aye. I be not so knowledgeable with gizmos and wha-cha-ma-call-its. But I knew ye had dabbled in many a different kind of technology.”

Benny slapped a hand against his helmet before slowly running it down his face.

“But TIME TRAVEL??? I don’t know anything about that! How am I supposed to figure that out??”

He frowned at him. 

“Rex did.”

“Well yeah but we’re not Rex…” 

Metalbeard looked down at the floor dejectedly and started fiddling with the canon on his arm absentmindedly.

“I know this be a hard task, and a big ask, but I thought we could at least try. Fer Rex…”

Benny looked at him and thought about it.

Yeah, time travel was a  _ very big ask, _ but it might not have been an impossible one. Benny had never tried to create a time machine or anything like that before, and well, Rex had figured it out, so he couldn't say it was something out of the realm of his possibility. He did have a lot of knowledge about sci-f technology, more so than Metalbeard did, definitely. So he supposed there was no harm in at least trying.

Especially if it was for his friend.

  
  


“Ok. I’ll help you out. For Rex.”

  
  


\-----

  
  


"Can you pass me that sheet of equations from over there?" Benny asked, pointing in the vague direction of the sheet in question.

When he got no response, he looked away from the complex scribbles of equations on the big whiteboard he was working on and saw Metalbeard cross legged across the room from him, intently texting on his phone.

Benny frowned at him, and decided to wade his way through the sea of discarded papers and various mechanical parts to see just what he was doing.

He stood next to him, scowling with his hands on his hips as he waited for some kind of acknowledgement. But Metalbeard just kept his eyes glued to his phone.

Benny cleared his throat irritability.

"Hold on, I be texting Lucy about a matter of grave importance."

Frustrated, Benny quickly snatched his phone out of his hands and looked at it.

"You're just planning when the two of you are next going out drinking together!!!" Benny shouted.

Metalbeard glared and snatched his phone back out of his hands.

"That only be part of it! I also be inquiring about Rex!"

Still incredibly irritated, but feeling marginally less annoyed, Benny sighed and crossed his arms as he looked at Metalbeard.

"Well how is he?"

Metalbeard frowned sadly.

"He be bored out of his mind and stubborn as hell. He not be accepting her help." 

"Oh… Yeah he did seem kinda grumpy when he texted me last. He was  _ really _ complaining about this one Star Trek character. But I mean, it's understandable, that one in particular is a real manipulative asshole. But still, I think some of his other frustrations might have played a part in it."

Benny then looked around at the chaotic mess that was somehow supposed to come together and become a time machine and sighed.

"We really need to get this done soon, don't we?"

"Aye." Metalbeard affirmed.

Benny walked back over to the whiteboard and glanced over everything sadly.

"I just wish things would be going better… We're kinda stuck right now." 

Metalbeard was about to try to offer some words of encouragement, but he was interrupted by the doors to their workshop flying open.

  
  


Three brightly coloured spacemen, one in yellow, one in pink, and one in white walked in and waved at them happily.

“Heya Ben! What ya working on in here?” The yellow spaceman, Kenny, asked.

“Oh you know, just a small time machine.” Benny nonchalantly shrugged.

All three of the others spluttered and ran up to him.

“A TIME MACHINE?” Lenny, the one in pink, asked.

"What?! Why are you making a time machine?!" Jenny, who had a white spacesuit, asked.

Metalbeard stood and walked over to them, his large size and presence immediately catching their attention.

"We be wanting ta take a velociraptor from the past ta give ta our friend."

The three of them looked between each other, completely perplexed, before Jenny stared up at him.

"Why???" She asked.

"Because he's stuck at home recovering from some injuries and we wanted to give him something to make him happy and occupy his time."

"Ok but, why a velociraptor?" Kenny questioned.

"Because he used to have a load of them that he got really good at training, but now he doesn't have any. So we wanted to get him one again!"

Lenny looked at the both of them incredibly sceptically.

"That's a lot of trouble to go to…"

"Aye. But he be our good friend. So he be worth it." Metalbeard nodded.

"Besides, we know this might not work, but we want to try at least."

  
  


The trio all glanced at each other. They all thought it was rather odd that their friend and his strange pirate friend would go to so much effort for such a weirdly specific gift, but they couldn't deny it was a very intriguing project.

  
  


"Well do you guys want any help? I'm sure we can put off our other projects for a bit to help out with this." Kenny suggested.

"Really? Are you guys sure?" Benny asked.

"Yeah! It'd be fun!" Jenny excitedly exclaimed.

"Plus think about how much of an impact this would have on the scientific community if we actually got it to work!" Kenny noted, as he started looking over some of the diagrams and notes strewn around the place.

Jenny had the biggest stars in her eyes as she ran up to Benny and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him as she bounced in excitement.

"We could be famous!" 

Lenny looked up at the ceiling in wonder as realisation hit him.

"We could finally warrant more funding…"

Benny looked at each of the enthusiastic trio and laughed happily.

"Well that's great guys! C'mon! Let's build this time machine!"

Metalbeard gave a hearty laugh of his own, and roughly slapped the nearest person to him (who happened to be the rather unfortunate sod Lenny) on the back as he smiled down at the group.

"Aye! With so many working on it together, how hard could it possibly be?"

  
  


\-----

  
  


Benny rested his robotic arm against the wall as he repeatedly slammed his helmet against it. 

_ “This is not working…” _ He dejectedly muttered.

“At this rate it’s gonna take like, 10 years to build a working time machine!!!” Jenny muffled into the desk she currently had her face buried into.

Kenny chewed the end of a marker pen as he stared at the jumbled mess of equations on the massive whiteboard. 

“Urgh! We’re close to  _ something, _ I can feel it! There’s just something a little off about it that I can’t put my finger on!” He growled in frustration.

“Yeah, we might actually be able to do this if we could just have  _ one  _ breakthrough.” Lenny sadly said as he sifted through a jumble of mechanical parts scattered on the floor.

Jenny then lifted her head off the desk and slammed her fist down.

“If only we had some kind of time travel expert or someone we could consult!”

  
  


Metalbeard, who was currently fiddling with some wires on a large squareish machine, turned to Benny instantaneously, the two of them coming to a stark realisation.

“...Well. There actually be an expert we know of...” Metalbeard sheepishly said.

The trio of astronauts snapped their various gases to him in a second.

  
  


“THEN WHY THE HECK HAVEN’T YOU BROUGHT THEM IN???” Jenny angrily shouted

Benny walked over to her with an uneasy placating smile on his face.

“Because the expert is our friend Rex, you know, the one we’re trying to do this as a surprise for?”

She and the other two stared back at Benny in infuriating confusion.

“Aye. If we brought him in, we would not be having a surprise for him! And ta add ta it, if this enterprise failed, he’d know and undoubtedly be saddened.” 

Benny nodded at him in agreement.

“Yeah, we don’t want to raise his hopes up if this ends up being impossible!”

  
  


Jenny clawed at the bottom rim of her helmet as she growled angrily, Lenny ended up snapping a thin metal pipe in his hands, and Kenny face palmed with a sigh as he made his way over to Benny and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Well that’s a very considerate thought Ben. But I’m afraid if your friend doesn’t help, then there’s no chance of us having this done before he recovers!”

“Or any time at all in the next decade…” Lenny muttered.

“Yeah! So you guys gotta decide: do you want to give up? Or do you want to bring your friend in to help?” Jenny asked with a frown.

  
  


Benny and Metalbeard each thought about it for a moment, before looking at each other.

Then they came to a decision. 

  
  


\-----

  
  


Lucy drove up to the entrance of the Syspocalypstar Space Center and parked up her bike for a moment. Rex sat behind her, his left arm wrapped around her waist as his right still sat in his sling. He removed his left arm and carefully stepped off Lucy's bike. As he stood to her side, she turned to face him.

“So you have no idea what Benny wants?” She asked. Rex shrugged.

“Nope. He said it was some kind of surprise. But don’t worry Luce, I won't go on some crazy space adventure with him or something. I’m just gonna see what he wants. I think he mentioned something about it just being a science project anyway.”

She frowned in concern as she thought about the kinds of things Rex and Benny had (and  _ could)  _ get up to. But she decided to take Rex at his word and trust him to not do anything too crazy.

“Ok. Well, let me know when you need a pick up. Or if he's gonna take you home, ok babe?” 

He smiled at her warmly. It still amazed him how much a simple term of endearment could make him feel so giddy.

“Yeah. No problem doll-face.” He cheekily said to her.

She blushed at that. It was such a sweet, yet such a  _ Rex _ thing to say, and she found she rather liked it. 

He backed away from her bike and gave her a wave as she started it up and slowly pulled off. She gave him a quick glance before turning her attention back to the road ahead. Rex stayed where he was and didn't stop waving until she'd completely disappeared from his sight. He lingered in front of the Space Center for a moment longer, before finally he turned and headed inside.

  
  


Rex walked through the Space Center, making his way to the scientific research department that Benny worked in. Well,  _ 'worked' _ being a rather loose term. It was more like Benny's personal space themed, spaceship building playground.

As Rex stood waiting in the lift, he idly tried scratching an itch on his right knuckles just inside the edge of his cast. When he found it was just a bit too far for him to reach, he instead decided to readjust the way his sling hung around his neck. He shoulder twinged a little as he did, but it was considerably less painful than it had been the past four or so weeks. He seemed to be recovering quite well, all things considered.

The Doc had even said he didn't need to wear the sling anymore, but Lucy hadn't been so happy about that. So Rex decided he'd keep wearing it for a little while longer when he was out and about. Just to be on the safe side. If it didn't do him any harm and it made Lucy feel better, then he didn't really mind.

  
  


Finally though, once the lift had reached the right floor and he'd walked through a long corridor for a while, Rex reached a big set of double doors and knocked on them. He waited a moment, hearing hushed whispers and paper rustling from the other side, before the door was suddenly opened in front of him. 

Benny stood in the doorway and smiled up at him.

"Hey Rex! Glad to see you could make it!"

Rex grinned down at him, his heart feeling warm and fuzzy at his friend being so pleased to (and so interested in) seeing him.

"Hey Benny. And no prob. To be honest, it was just nice to have an excuse to get out of the house." He chuckled. But Benny looked at him with a slight frown of empathetic concern. So to lighten the mood, Rex shrugged him off.

"So, you gonna let me in, or what?"

Benny was instantly knocked out of any stupor he threatened to fall into and lit up.

"Oh yeah, sure! Come in!"

He held the door open for Rex as he walked in. He stopped a few paces into the large open room, looking around curiously.

"Excuse the mess, it's a bit hectic in here…" Benny said as he walked past Rex to stand over by a pink suited spaceman at one of the large messy tables.

Rex had a million different questions pop into his mind as he glanced around at the chaotic cacophony of clutter splattered all over the room. There were nuts, bolts and various bits of scraps everywhere. Tools were left discarded and even still attached to some bits of machinery in some cases. Papers were strewn all about, some if it with harsh scribbles over some kind of maths looking stuff, some in piles covered in haphazardly scrawled writing and a lot more of it crumpled up and chucked in the general vicinity of the bin.

Then there was some kind of giant cube machiney thing with a big hole in the middle that sat rather prominently in the middle of it all.

"What is all this? You guys trying to build a robot? Or a death ray or something?" He asked. 

Another spaceman, this one in white, popped up from behind a pile of large chunks of scrap metal and gasped dramatically.

_ "Please _ let me build a death ray next!!" She excitedly pleaded at another yellow spaceman, would looked incredibly exasperated.

_ "No!" _ He hissed out.

Rex was rather amused by their bickering, but before it could devolve any further, they were all distracted by someone with heavy footfalls walking up to Rex.

  
  


"Actually, what we be building is something that requires your expertise."

Rex looked up at him surprise.

"Metalbeard? I didn't think you'd be here. Why are you at the space center?" He asked.

"I be here because I be the one who came up with the idea for this project."

Rex gawked up at him.

_ "You? _ Working on some crazy sci-fi project??"

"Aye."

He stalled for a moment, wondering what on earth could possibly compel an old-fashioned pirate like Metalbeard to dip his peg-leg into some crazy scientific scheme.

"Well now I'm curious! What the hell did you come up with that needs  _ my _ help?"

Benny floated over to him, nervously tapping his hands together.

"Well, it was going to be a surprise once we'd finished building the machine. But we got stuck, and we couldn't, and you're the only one who could help so-"

"Oh for crying out loud Ben!" Kenny interrupted, before he looked at Rex and continued to speak.

"Look- what he's trying to say, is that they wanted to build a time machine to get you a velociraptor." 

Rex blinked rapidly.

"You guys are… trying to get me a raptor?" He softly asked.

"Aye. We thought it would be a nice gift, and give you something to do when you're stuck at home."

Slowly, a touched smile spread across his face. 

His friends had started, very seriously, to try to build a time machine to bring him a dinosaur from the past. It was obvious they'd been working on it for a while, given how much of a mess this whole room had gotten into. And they had done it all just for him. Just to give something so meaningful to him, and the only reason being was because they wanted to make him happy.

"But like I was  _ trying to say! _ We're stuck. We've made a start on the time machine but it's not going anywhere." Benny said, as he shot a glare in Kenny's direction.

Lenny then held a chunk of metal and gestured with it, catching Rex's attention. 

"So we decided, once these two idiots  _ finally _ told us you were an expert in time travel, to bring you in to help." 

Rex didn't know what to say.

He couldn't recall many times where anyone had called him an  _ expert _ in something. There were of course, many things now that he supposed he  _ could _ be classified as an expert in. Raptor training for one. Master breaking, definitely. Fighting in general probably counted in that too. And he guessed, making time traveling machines could be another one as well.

But no one had ever really wanted him to consult on any kind of important project before. Not like this. And not without some kind of threat to the universe.

  
  


He looked over at Kenny, who stood at a large whiteboard, and then walked up to it. He looked over the vast amount of squiggled numbers and let out a long impressed whistle.

"You guys got a lotta numbers going on over here huh?"

"Well that's one way of putting it…" Lenny worryingly observed.

The trio of spacemen looked between each other with a unified look that said  _ 'this guy was a scientific expert?' _ Kenny then put the marker pen he was holding down on the board and started gesturing to a certain section of the board.

"It's a very complex theorem, incorporating Einstein's theory of relativity and-"

Rex interrupted Kenny with a wave of his left hand, quickly silencing him.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! No one wants to hear you spout off a bunch sci-fi mumbo jumbo, it's an equation to make time travel possible, we get it." 

Kenny looked mildly offended as Rex looked over the equation and screwtinized it. After a minute or so, he turned to Kenny sceptically.

"So where's your flux capacitor?" He asked.

Jenny blew a raspberry and chuckled at him.

"Pfft! What, like from Back to the Future?"

Lenny looked up from his tinkering to stare at Rex incredulously.

"No offense, but I don't think some plot device from an 80's movie has any basis in real scientific fa-"

"Well  _ that's _ your problem! You don't have one! Without a flux capacitor, time travel is just the pipe dream of a mad man. Here, lemme just-"

  
  


Rex then grabbed a marker pen off the whiteboard and wiped off a section of the equation that he knew was wrong, so he could make himself some clear space to write on. Kenny let out strained groan at Rex just casually wiping away some of their hard work, but Rex didn't notice. He continued to draw and write on the board, his left hand making everything look slightly wobbly, but it was still fairly legible. When he was done, he popped the cap back on the pen and put it down on the whiteboard, before stepping aside and letting the others see what he'd done.

Everyone except Metalbeard gasped in shock.

On the board, Rex had drawn a diagram of a three pointed device that had several small equations and notes around it. 

It was was a drawing of a real flux capacitor, with all the necessary information on how to build it and have it actually be functional.

  
  


"That… That's solves SO MUCH!" Lenny exclaimed.

"How is this possible…?" Kenny said in hushed awe.

"This is incredible!" Jenny excitedly squealed.

Rex grinned at Benny and gave him a wink.

"Told ya. This is all you guys needed."

Metalbeard then walked closer to the board and inspected Rex's diagram with a scrutinising frown.

"What be this peculiar contraption Rex?" He asked. Rex barked out a laugh and slapped a hand on Metalbeard's leg.

"This Metalbeard,  _ 'be' _ our key to time travel…"

  
  


\-----

  
  


"I can't believe we actually have a functioning time teleporter!" Jenny exclaimed.

"Well, we hope." Lenny muttered.

"Yeah, who knows if this is gonna work." Kenny said, as he hooked up the ends of two leads together.

Rex, who was looking over some readouts at a computer screen, scoffed at the lot of them.

"Come on guys! If even a dummy like me can successfully build a time traveling spaceship, then surely all of us put together can make a little time traveling teleporter that works! You gotta have  _ confidence _ in yourselves. Visualise your success and make it happen!"

The trio looked over at Rex and smiled at his reassurance. He'd seemed rather brash when they'd first met him a week ago, but they were quickly finding he could be rather good company. He told cheeky jokes, knew a lot of interesting things about space and history, and he could even be rather patient and supportive if they got frustrated trying to work something out. They were all quickly becoming good friends, and Rex could see why Benny loved hanging out with them so much.

He found it was really nice to be able to do something so normal like make some new friends. Their similar interests really helped him open up and connect with them. Although he supposed bonding over building a time machine wasn't exactly what one would typically consider  _ 'normal'. _ But it worked, so it was all perfectly fine with him.

  
  


"Ok, everything's set. Looks like we can finally try this out." Benny said.

Everyone then moved to take their various stations around the big cube-like time machine. 

Lenny was in charge of the powerflow, and was ready to turn it on or off at a moment's notice. Rex, being the most familiar with the matter, had to make sure the machine searched through and selected the right time period. Kenny was in charge of scanning for raptors and locking onto one. Then both Benny and Jenny had to oversee everything, double checking everyone's calculations, and be ready to assist anyone who needed it.

And of course, Metalbeard stood by as moral support.

"You guys ready?" Benny asked.

His response was various yeps from everyone, so he nodded at Lenny, who then proceeded to place both of his hands on a large control switch.

"Ok, powering it up in 3, 2, 1…"

  
  


Lenny flicked the switch.

  
  


The lights in the entire building dimmed for a moment, before suddenly bright blue light blazed from the machine with such a fierce intensity that it made everyone snap their eyes shut.

After the light dimmed slightly, they all recovered and got to work analysing and manning their different stations.

A pale blue light coming from the centre of their time teleporter machine bathed the whole room in a faint glow as they worked.

Rex fiddled with the dials and knobs at his station until the destination of the machine was in a period of time roughly 65 million years ago (a couple months after his last visit there, so he could avoid any weird time paradoxes by them accidentally snatching a raptor that was supposed to go with his past self). Gosh all this time travel stuff could be confusing...

Finally though, his part of the job was done.

"Ok it's targeting the time period. You're good to go Kenny." He said with a nod in his direction. Kenny then started typing at his own computer more rapidly than before.

"Scanning for specimens."

After a couple minutes, Kenny found what they were looking for.

"I've got a bio-lock on a target. Velociraptor DNA confirmed."

Benny nodded at him and unflicked the safeties on a number of switches.

"Got it. Initiating full teleportation."

He pushed on each of the switches in quick succession, and the machine glowed brighter and whirred loudly. Lenny increased the power to it, ensuring it was at optimal performance for the final stage of teleportation.

It got louder and louder, as sparks of electricity shot from it. The increasing power inside it made the machine rattle and jerk on the floor. 

Then suddenly, a bright red warning light and alarm flashed on Kenny's screen.

“Wait! There’s something wrong with the DNA lock. The signature and size of it is all wrong. I’m not sure how many we got. I can’t make out if it’s 1 or 3 individual signatures.”

“Should we abort?” Lenny worriedly asked, his hand poised on the kill switch.

Kenny shook his head.

“It’s too late to do that now. The teleportation has already started. We just have to hope for the best and see what exactly comes through.”

Everyone glanced at each other in worry hoping that whatever they pulled through would make it in one piece...

  
  


The machine screeched as glowing energy and smoke billowed from its centre. Power readings went off the charts and overloaded computers exploded with bursts of electricity.

A final loud exploding bang made everyone duck for the nearest cover as a beam of blinding light cut through the room.

  
  


After a few minutes the light faded, and the machine died down. Everyone shakily rose to their feet, hanging back before cautiously making their way over to the mangled mess that used to be the time teleporter. 

Then, slowly, the smoke dissipated, revealing what had managed to make it through.

  
  


"That not be a raptor…" Metalbeard quietly observed.

Benny gasped in wonder.

"Are those eggs?"

Rex stood silently and utterly still for a moment as he looked on. Slowly he made his way forward, the others parting for him, until he finally stood right in front of the teleporter.

"Yeah… They're raptor eggs…" He whispered.

Benny and Metalbeard glanced at each other in disappointment.

"Sorry it's not a proper raptor like we promised." Benny sorrowfully apologised. 

He felt really bad for Rex, worrying that they had indeed dashed his hopes by not getting him what they'd promised.

But Rex didn't notice the worry in his voice. Instead, he put his left hand against one of the three eggs, a small purple one, feeling that it was definitely warm enough to be alive, but not as warm as it optimally should have been.

He turned back to face Benny and Metalbeard, a wide, ecstatic grin across his face, that just seemed to get happier and happier.

"Are you kidding? You guys got me  _ babies! _ That's even better! It's amazing! It's…  _ egg-cellent! _ " He giggled. Both at his own terrible pun, and the fact he was so excited.

The others all sighed in relief, happy that their hard work had paid off, even if it wasn't in the way they'd initially intended. But then Rex quickly stood, buzzing with excitement, and started listing things off at a mile a minute.

"Though they do feel a bit colder than they should. They might have been left alone too long. We should  _ really _ get something warm around them asap. Then build an incubator or something. Oh! We could totally use some of that spare thermodynamic piping from earlier!"

He practically bounced on the spot as a plan rapidly formed in his mind, before he looked at his friends and laughed with pure joy.

"Aw, this is gonna be so great!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Rex now has three raptor eggs!!! :D 
> 
> Adorable baby times are ahead guys ;3 You're gonna love it! And, well, so is Rex! I mean, I couldn't give him his happy ending without giving him some raptors at some point, now could I? xD But I would like to especially thank Ilovestories123 for leaving a comment aaaaaallllllllllll the way back on Chapter 5 of Rebuild who said:  
"The only thing that would make this fic so much better, was if Rex (and maybe the others) set out to get him a couple of raptor eggs for him to raise up and train. Something productive and comforting for him to do when they cant be there."
> 
> And well, here it finally is! :D It tied it into this arc of Rex recovering pretty well, cause it gave his friends a particular reason why they wanted to do it for him whilst he's housebound. 
> 
> But babies aren't the only thing that happened in this chapter! We got the Space Squad now too! :D They were quite fun to characterise! I went a bit off of others' interpretations of them, but mostly I used what they're doing on their toy box and did my own take on them.  
Kenny has a metal detector and yellow lego astronauts are apparently scientists, so Kenny is the smart, level headed scientist of the group.  
Lenny is pink and has a wrench, and whilst pink doest have a meaning, red is apparently for pilots. So Lenny is kind of a pilot/ mechanic.  
And then there's Jenny, who's an explorer and also has a blaster/ gun. So I went with her as someone who's excitable, interested in everything, with a touch of Adam Savage "want to blow shit up for science! >:D" kind of personality. I think she's my fave of them! x3 
> 
> Also lol, tfw you hate a Star Trek character so much, you throw shade about her in your Lego fanfic! xD (It's Kai Winn if you know who that is, and trust me, she deserves it! xP)
> 
> Also, also, yes, the title is a reference to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!" Which I thought was fitting given the subject of time travel in this one


	17. An Egg-citing Arrival

Rex sat on a cushion on the floor in the living room, right in between the double decker couch and the coffee table. He had the TV on, quietly playing some cooking show in the background, but he had stopped paying attention to it long ago. He had his right arm, thankfully no longer in a sling but still in its cast, resting on a pillow on the coffee table, whilst his left arm was bent and sitting on the table too. He rested his chin against it as he did nothing but stare at what was in front of him. 

On the coffee table sat a big square, glass box. In it, resting in soft padded alcoves, were the three raptor eggs that Metalbeard, Benny, and the space squad had gotten him. There were little controls and dials on the outside of the box, that Rex and the space squad had made to control the temperature and environment inside the incubator.

Rex fiddled with one of the dials, making the inside temperature a tiny fraction warmer. As he saw the thermometer raise another degree, he sighed happily. Everything about the incubator was perfect. The three little eggs that rested inside once again had the absolute optimum conditions to eventually hatch.

Utterly distracted by the eggs, Rex didn't notice that Lucy had walked into the living room until she was standing right next to him and had put a mug of coffee on the table in his peripheral vision. This one, that Lucy had recently gotten him, said  _ 'Dino-mite Raptor Dad' _ on it, with the word  _ 'raptor' _ having been written on in permanent marker. 

Rex looked at it in surprise. 

“What’s this Luce?” 

She grabbed a pillow and sat down beside him, putting her own mug of coffee on the table next to his.

“I made you coffee. I saw you didn’t already have a cup out. Did you just come straight in here again?”

Rex looked back at the eggs, leaning his head in his left hand as he sighed contently.

“Yeah, I guess I did.” 

Lucy did her best to hold back a chuckle. She found it really sweet that Rex was so enamoured by something so simple and adorable as three baby animals. It was part of his softer side that she never got tired of seeing.

Although she was a teensy bit concerned with just how much time he was spending just looking at the eggs and messing with minute settings on the incubator. She didn't think that the eggs needed  _ quite _ so much constant supervision as what Rex was putting in. 

“You know, you really are spending a lot of time watching the eggs... You said you and the space squad built this incubator really well, why are you so worried about them?”   
  
“I’m not worried. Well- ok- maybe I am a tiny bit…” He said as he looked at her with a hint of a concerned frown. But then he glanced back at the eggs and smiled again.

“But it’s more that I’m just so happy to have them. When I came back here without The Rexcelsior, I didn’t think I’d ever have a raptor again. But now look! I have three!” He exclaimed, buzzing with happiness.

He sighed again, placing his left hand against one of the glass panels of the incubator.

“Three little eggs that are gonna turn into three adorable little babies in just another week or so…” 

Lucy smiled at Rex warmly and scootched a bit closer to him, leaning against his side as she then looked at the eggs as well.

“I bet they’re gonna be really cute...”

Rex put his hand back down on the table and laughed as he turned to Lucy.

“Oh, the cutest! You’re gonna love ‘em Luce! Our little raptors are gonna be the most exciting, adorable, handfuls you’ve ever seen!”

_ “‘Our’ _ raptors?” She asked quizzically.

She thought the eggs had just been for Rex, and that they'd be his alone. So she was very surprised to hear that he considered them to be hers too. Or perhaps it had just been a slip of the tongue on his part?

He looked at her with a small sheepish smile.

“Well yeah… They are gonna live here after all. And you live here too. It'd be like if I'd have gotten a normal pet, like a puppy or something, it would kinda be yours too, right? It's the same thing, just with little baby dinosaurs! Not that I expect you to have to look after them! After all, I didn't really consult you about getting them… So they'll be my responsibility! But, well, I might need some of your help looking after them to start with, if my hand is still in the cast when they hatch.”

She was rather touched by that. Yes, it probably would have been better if he'd asked her about something big like getting a pet (or three in this case) but she understood that he and the space squad had gotten carried away with the idea. Plus these weren't just any kind of pets, these were  _ raptors. _ They were something really important to Rex. His old crew of raptors had been practically his only company for 5 years, he'd grown to care for them and become so used to having them around. He obviously missed having them. So these three little eggs were the next best thing! So really, she didn't mind that he'd gotten them.

And if they already made him so happy before they'd even hatched? Then she couldn't wait to see how he'd be on the day they finally arrived.

“I suppose you have a point. They are kinda gonna be both of ours, aren't they? And actually I think it'll be fun to have a kind of pet- or three- around the house. But you know, I don’t know the first thing about looking after raptors. How am I supposed to help?”

Rex grinned at her warmly, relieved to hear that she was interested in the raptors too, as he put his left arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug.

“Don’t worry Luce, I've been looking after raptors for 5 years. I know practically everything there is to know about them! And I’ll be right here to guide you through everything.” 

She smiled back at him before resting her head on his shoulder. The two of them sat together, staring in wonder at the incubator and the three little dinosaurs inside, happily waiting for them to make they way into the world.

  
  


\-----

  
  


One day, about a week and a half later, Rex and Lucy were both idly chatting on the sofa in the living room, when all of a sudden a constant beeping noise started coming from the incubator. They both stopped mid sentence and turned to look at it. Lucy frowned quizzically.

“Is that-” She started, but was quickly cut off by Rex as he practically rolled off the couch and onto the floor next to the coffee table.

“THEY’RE HATCHING!” He excitedly shouted.

Lucy couldn't hold back a laugh as she saw him scramble over to the incubator to press his face right up to the glass. Inside, he saw the largest dark blue egg wobble slightly as a small crack started to form on the side of it. Rex beamed from ear to ear as he turned back to Lucy and enthusiastically exclaimed in a high pitched happy voice.

“Lucy! They’re finally hatching!!! You gotta call the guys! Maybe they can make it over in time to watch before they’re done!” 

Chuckling, she shook her head and fished her phone out of her pocket, quickly dialling their friends and waiting for them to pick up...

  
  


\-----

  
  


The front door opened and Benny and Metalbeard poked their heads inside.

“Hey guys!” Benny called out.

“We be h-!” Metalbeard started, before quickly being cut off as something slammed into his leg as it ran past him, which also knocked Benny over in the process.

  
  


_ “WHERE’S THE CUTENESS???” _ Unikitty shouted as she stood in the hallway and looked around frantically in excited panic.

Lucy came up to them from the living room archway and gestured to them.

“Come in!  _ Come in! _ You all gotta get over here!”

They followed after her as they all made their way into the room. Rex looked up at them from his spot sat on the floor and gave them a big smile.

“You guys got here just in time…” He said softly as he turned his attention back to the eggs.

  
  


Rex had carefully taken the eggs out of the incubator and placed them on his duvet, which he'd scrunched up and laid out on the floor, almost like a nest, to give them plenty of space on a big soft surface to hatch on. All three of the eggs had a number of cracks all over them as they wiggled around on the spot.

Lucy sat back down right next to Rex as the other three gathered around and joined them on the floor, exclaiming in hushed wonder as they looked at the eggs.

"Hey, where's Batman?" Lucy asked as she glanced around at the others.

"I called him and he said he can't make it. He's stuck in some important meeting with Watevra in the Systar System." Benny said. 

Rex had the ghost of a frown on his face for a brief moment, but he quickly shrugged it off as one of the eggs making a cracking sound caught his attention and raised his spirits again.

"Oh well, no matter! We'll be sure to take lots of pictures for him." He said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Everyone then quietened as they watched the eggs shake and crack in amazement. The two larger ones, one of which was dark blue whilst the other was a more lighter shade, had very large cracks and they wobbled around like crazy. Several tiny bits of shell started flaking off at the seams of a number of cracks, until finally larger sections started to be pushed away and fall off too.

But the third egg, which was purple and noticeably smaller than the others, barely moved and had far fewer prominent cracks over it.

After a few minutes of looking at it, Benny frowned in concern.

“Shouldn’t you like, help them out of their shells or something Rex?” He asked.

Unikitty glanced at the egg too, before also turning her attention to Rex.

“Yeah! That one is taking a lot longer than the others!”

Unikitty put her paw near the egg in question as she pointed to it, which made Rex wave his arm at her as he spoke quickly with a terrified look on his face to get her attention.

“No, no, no! You should never,  _ ever  _ try to help an animal out of their shell when they’re hatching! It’s way too risky! You try to  _ ‘help’ _ and take them out too early, you will do way more harm than good in like, 99% of cases. Trust me, they’ll be fine. We just need to give them time.” 

Unikitty pulled back her paw away from the egg and decided to wait patiently along with the others.

  
  


Eventually the small purple egg caught up with the other two and started to wobble just as much as them. The dark blue egg then had a massive crack form, and a large top section of the egg finally broke away and fell onto the duvet. A little dark blue head with a green marking over its left eye popped out the top. Its eyes were shut closed and it started chirping in a tiny weak voice, as it turned its head to start listening around. As it moved around a bit more and snapped the rest of its egg shell in half, everyone gasped in awe at its adorableness.

But then their attention was diverted away as the light blue egg suddenly cracked open too. A pale blue foot kicked out the bottom, as the top of it was pushed apart by the baby's head. A light blue raptor with dark blue dappled stripes running from its eyes, down its back and its tail started shrieking loudly as it looked around in confusion.

Unikitty squealed with glee as everyone else aww'd as they were overloaded with cuteness. Rex had tears glistening in his eyes as he smiled in utterly amazed bliss at the tiny babies in front of him. He'd almost forgotten just how magical welcoming little raptors into the world could be. It made his heart utterly explode with joy.

But there was still one egg left to hatch; The purple one that was closest to Rex. The top section of the shell kept being pushed up, before quickly falling back down again. It did that for several minutes, but Rex knew better than to touch it. He stayed patient, waiting with bated breath.

But finally, the baby inside was able to break free and push a large section of the shell off of it.

It was pale purple with pink stripes all over it, and markings on both its eyes. It was also absolutely tiny, about half the size of the other two. Rex knew that meant it was the runt, and that he'd have to keep an extra close eye on it to make sure it stayed healthy and developed well. But then it looked right up at him, staring intently for a moment, before letting out a single squeaking chirp. And in that instant, Rex was absolutely smitten.

Rex leant forward over to the purple runt, and with his left hand he ever so delicately lifted it outside the remains of its shell. It squeaked at him curiously, tilting its head to the side as he drew it closer to himself. He rested his right arm in his lap as he sat his left arm on top of his cast, curling his wrist and hand around the baby raptor to keep it securely in place. It curled up in his hand and against his stomach, happily snuggling into his comforting warmth. He chuckled as a few tears silently ran down his face. The tiny baby was no bigger than his hand. But somehow, it had immediately walked right into his open heart and completely taken it over. 

Lucy looked at how utterly happy and content Rex was and felt her heart flutter. His warm blissful smile appeared just at home on his rugged, chiselled face, as it had done years ago on his old soft one. She rubbed her right hand against his back and pulled him into a sideways hug, as she then wrapped her arm around his back. He faced her and sniffed his happy tears away as he looked at her lovingly. 

Just then, the dark blue and green striped raptor let out a whine as it opened it eyes a crack, and squinted around. Rex chuckled again and looked between the raptor and Lucy.

"I think that little one wants some attention Luce…" He said with a soft, yet also wry smile.

She looked at him in surprise, before quickly turning to face the baby and immediately getting sucked in by its cuteness. She crawled over to it, gazing at it and thinking over her every move carefully. Slowly she put one hand under its chest as she moved her other one to curl the raptor's stubby tail around itself and lift its back end securely. It squeaked at her happily as she pulled it closer to her chest and sat back down beside Rex. It looked up at her, sniffing rapidly before chirping at her in delight. She giggled at it, and hugged it tightly against herself.

"Hello there…" She said softly.

It curled and wriggled in her embrace, and she knew in an instant just why Rex had grown to care about his raptors so much. Tiny dinosaurs could be unbelievably adorable.

Across from them, the light blue raptor had started chirping loudly as it tried to toddle around. It looked at Metalbeard and screeched at him, being slightly confused and intimidated by his large presence, but he just chuckled down at it and slowly lowered his hand so the baby could inspect it. It sniffed at one of his large fingers quizzically, before it decided he wasn't a threat, and began gnawing on his finger with its soft gums.

Benny and Unikitty scootched as closely to Metalbeard as they could, and cooed at the cuteness in front of them.

Lucy and Rex looked at each other with utterly content smiles on their faces, just as if they were proud new parents. Lucy then glanced at the little dinosaur in her arms and stroked its head, before looking back up at Rex.

  
  


“So what are you gonna name them Rex?” 

He thought about it for a long moment, but then he came to a decision.

“I want  _ you _ to name them Luce…”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him in absolute shock.

_ “ _ ** _Me?_ ** You want  _ me _ to  _ name  _ them??” She asked incredulously.

He nodded at her with a particularly sweet smile on his face. She glanced down at the raptor in her arms, then back up at him.

“Rex, babe, that’s really sweet, but that’s a  _ terrible  _ idea!” 

He pouted at her a little as he started stroking the tiny purple raptor in his lap with his left hand.

“Well I think you could come up with some very interesting names!” He argued.

And well, he wasn't wrong exactly. Any names Lucy could come up with would certainly be  _ 'interesting'... _ But she doubted she could come up with anything that anyone would ever thank her for.

“You really want someone who once called themselves  _ ‘Freakface’ _ to name literally  _ anything  _ ever???” 

He frowned at her. 

“Well yeah. I do. I’ve named tons of raptors and you’ve never named any. Plus, these guys are kind of both of ours… I want you to have a say.” He affirmed softly. 

She glanced across the room to the other three, who simply shrugged at her, just as confused as her. But they didn't really have any place to say anything against the idea. It was ultimately Rex's decision after all, and if he decided that Lucy was to name the raptor babies? Then that was his prerogative. 

“Ok, if that’s what you  _ really  _ want, then how about this: I’ll name two, if you name one?” She suggested. 

If she couldn't get out of naming them, then she could at least be happy that Rex could give at least  _ one _ of them a good name. He looked at her skeptically for a moment as he thought about it, but then he agreed.

“...Deal.” 

  
  


She sighed, looking down at the dark blue and green striped raptor snuggling into her arms. She decided she might as well start with this one.

“Ok, I guess I’ll name this one…”

She started thinking about possible names, but then she paused as she realised something.

“Wait, how do we know if this is a boy or girl?”

Rex leaned over, lifted up the tiny raptor’s tail, took a quick look, then let it go to curl back up in Lucy’s arms. 

“That one’s a boy.”

She scrunched up her face in confusion.

_ “How did y-? _ You know what?  _ Never mind. _ So this one’s a boy? Ok…”

She looked at him, taking note of his particularly dark scales and thinking for a moment, before a name finally popped into her head.

“So how about… Nightquake?” She suggested.

The others laughed at that and she grimaced in embarrassment, but Rex just smiled at her.

"I like it! I think that sounds very badass Luce." He cheerfully replied.

She shook her head at him and chuckled. Part of her thought he was just saying that to be sweet, but if he didn't like it, she had no doubt he'd have voiced that to her. So she decided to agree with him. After all, it  _ was _ kind of a badass name...

  
  


Then, the other raptor let go of Metalbeard's hand to screech and chirp happily, as it tried to waddle over to its siblings.

"Looks like this one's quite a little singer!" Benny said as he picked up the baby in his arms and brought it over for Rex to look at.

"Yep, that…  _ she _ is!" He noted.

Benny put the little light blue raptor in between Rex and Lucy. She quickly decided to clamber up into Lucy's lap, her thankfully dull claws only digging in Lucy's leg a little bit, as she tried to curl up against her dark blue brother.

As Lucy looked down at her, she thought about how much more vocal this particular raptor was being and tried to think of something off of that. An idea came to her. It was cliché, and very,  _ very _ edgy, but it would be fitting. She looked at Rex sheepishly as she suggested it.

“Evanescence, maybe?” 

He barked out a laugh as he looked down at blue baby. 

"Ha! I don't see why not! Sure! This little, lyrical lady can be Evanescence!"

Lucy beamed at him, as she curled her arms around the baby raptors in her lap and rubbed a thumb against Evanescence's head, who squeaked happily at Lucy. 

"Ok Rex, now it's  _ your turn. _ What are you gonna name the last one?"

Thinking about it for a moment, he stared down at the tiny runt in his arms.

“Well, I think I'm gonna call this little girl…” 

He paused, before he turned to Lucy with the most cheeky smirk he could muster.

_ “Geminizzle.” _ He said.

Lucy gasped at him, trying her best not to disturb the babies in her arms as the others giggled at them from the other side of the room.

"What?! No! You can't do that!" 

Rex scoffed at her.

"Actually I can name her whatever I want! And I like that one! It  _ is _ my favourite of your old nicknames."

She groaned as she turned away from him.

"But you were supposed to name her something good!" She complained.

"And I did! I think Geminizzle is perfect for a pretty little baby like her." He teased as he rubbed at a little spot right under Geminizzle's chin, making her purr contently.

Lucy sighed in exasperation as she looked between each of the raptors, before meeting Rex's eyes again.

"I'm not gonna be able to change your mind on that am I?"

He grinned at her slyly with a wry smirk.

_ "Nope!" _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know I realised Rex acts very Emmet-y in this one! xD But then again he is Rex *Brickowski* and if anything is gonna make him go into happy, cute Emmet mode, then of course it's gonna be adorable baby animals! x3
> 
> Also the babies are here, and they are adorable!!!! x3 I hope you all love seeing more of them ;)


	18. Toddler Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Ok so there's a character that appears in this chapter that I was supposed to write a deleted scene for, showing his introduction that happens back during Rebuild, but I haven't got round to it yet 3: Just know that when he/they show up, Rex has met them as Rex before. So they know about him, and about him previously being Emmet and all that.)

Rex was finally free.

No more sling, no more cast, no reason he couldn’t use his bike, nothing!

He was back to doing absolutely whatever the hell he wanted!

Or well, mostly what he wanted. He still had to take things easy with his shoulder for a few more weeks. He couldn’t do any heavy lifting, or strength exercises, or anything like that. But at least now he could do most normal things again. He had full use of his right hand and arm, and he intended to use them.

Which is why today, he’d decided to take his bike out and drive around Syspocalyspstar. 

He thought as he was already out and about, he might as well run some errands. He and Lucy needed some shopping getting anyway and he thought he should do it, since she’d pretty much gotten stuck with all the errands whilst he’d been recovering. It would be nice to start making it up to her a bit. But he also decided to do it, because he’d take  _ anything  _ as an excuse to stay out longer. He’d been cooped up far too long for his liking. 

  
  


Behind him on his bike, he heard a loud chirping squeak. He glanced behind him briefly as he carefully drove through the city. He saw the pet carry crate was still securely strapped to the seat behind him and the extra pad-lock he’d put on the door was shut up tight, meaning the three little raptors inside were perfectly fine.

He had decided to take the raptor babies with him on his outing today. They were big enough now to toddle around and go outside (with constant supervision) and he thought it would be a good idea to expose them to the hustle and bustle of the city whilst they were still young. It was very important to get them used to things now, so they wouldn’t freak out over anything when they grew up. You really didn’t want an adult raptor going off on one after all.

He looked ahead again, but heard another whining squeak from behind him. He grimaced, but stayed strong as he drove on. He knew the babies were perfectly fine. They were probably just very confused with what was happening, and what all the loud noises and strange smells were. Unfortunately though, there wasn't anything he could do right now. He couldn't exactly turn around and coo at them through the bars to comfort them. He did kind of need to do the more important thing of paying attention while driving so he didn't crash or something. 

So yeah, the babies would just have to deal with it and wait a little longer. They'd be at their first stop soon, and Rex had a feeling it would make up for any discomfort they had whilst traveling.

  
  


\-----

  
  


Rex walked into the large local pet store with the babies in the carry crate in his right hand, and a large basket in his left. After grabbing a mixture of soft foods from the reptile section, Rex headed over to the dog and puppy section.

Yes, he had baby dinosaurs and not dogs, but normal pet shops didn't exactly stock anything for them. So he had to make do with what they did have. He put his basket down and lifted the pet crate up so the raptors could see the display through the bars.

"What do you guys think? See anything you like?"

All three babies squealed and chirped at all the interesting bright colours and smells in front of them. Rex chuckled as he put them back down, before fishing a key from his pocket to undo the padlock on the front of the crate. He opened the door and pulled one of them out at random. It turned out he picked up Nightquake, which was good, as he was the biggest of the three and perfect for what Rex had in mind.

He pushed the door of the crate shut and stood up straight, holding Nightquake securely with his right arm. Rex then picked up a small puppy harness off the rack so he could hold it against Nightquake. Luckily the bright green adjustable harnesses was just the right size for the baby raptor, and he'd easily be able to fit it around the little raptor's shoulders and stomach. Nightquake chirped and sniffed at the bright, strangely coloured thing near him, before trying to nip at it curiously. Rex chuckled and dropped the harness into his basket, before picking up another dark blue one and a purple one and throwing them in to. 

Rex then looked at the array of squeaky toys. The babies teeth would come in before he knew it, so he thought it would be best to get them used to chewing something appropriate, rather than his or Lucy's hands, whilst they were still only gumming things. He didn't particularly feel like adding any more tiny baby raptor bite scars to the collection already adorning his hands. And he doubted Lucy would appreciate starting a collection of her own either. 

So he held Nightquake up to the display and let him sniff around to find a toy that he liked. Rex didn’t want to get one that he would immediately lose interest in, which is why he was happy when Nightquake suddenly squealed and started leaning towards a bright orange and light blue coloured squeaky doughnut. Rex picked it up and gave it to Nightquake, who quickly started gnawing on it and growling happily. Rex smiled at him and decided to look over the rest of the squeaky toys to see what the other two might like, before he had to take the doughnut off of Nightquake to put in the basket. It was never easy taking something off of a raptor when they were particularly engrossed in it, even when they were only a tiny baby. 

But then Rex’s attention was drawn away from Nighquake, when he suddenly heard a frightened screech come from the pet crate on the floor. He glanced down and was horrified to see the door of the pet crate wide open, with Geminizzle popping her head out and sniffing intently. His eyes darted around immediately, and in an instant he spotted Evanescence toddling off towards the end of the alise and heading around the corner out of sight. 

Without thinking, he quickly put Nightquake on the floor and ran.

“Evanescence! Get back here!” He shouted. 

He turned the corner to see the baby dinosaur running towards the fish section, and in the back of his mind as he ran, he wondered when exactly she’d learned how to move quite that quick. He caught up to her as she’d reached the tanks and was screeching unhappily as she tried and failed to jump up and grab all the pretty colourful food-looking things above her. Rex roughly grabbed her around her middle and hoisted her up into the air. He held her tightly so she couldn’t escape, but she wriggled and thoroughly protested with loud angry screeching. Rex held firm, hugging her tightly to his chest despite how her claws dug into his stomach through his vest. He guessed at some point in the week or so since her hatching, they’d gotten sharper too. 

As he was readjusting his hold on her and shushing to try and calm her down, he heard a startled scream of a woman yell out from across the store. 

Fearing the worst, he ran over to where it had come from. 

In an area filled with pet beds, he saw a woman trying to pull her angry and confused dog away from the baby raptor that was currently stood as tall as it could on its little legs, as it growled and hissed at the strange, scary, bigger animal. 

“NIGHTQUAKE!” Rex cried out.

He immediately darted forward and scooped Nightquake up in his left arm, righting himself quickly and turning to the side defensively as the large dog started barking at him. From the warm, familiar scented safety of Rex’s arms, Nightquake hissed at the dog defiantly. Evanescence joined in with her brother and screeched at the weird animal angrily, upset that it had frightened her brother so much.

The woman stood frozen as she looked at the two large, lizard-looking things in Rex’s arms in confusion. Rex looked down at the raptor babies in his arms with a stern frown.

“Hey! Stop that! Leave the dog alone!  _ Bad babies!!!” _

They stopped instantly at his harsh tone and looked up at him. They didn’t know exactly what he was saying, of course, but they could tell he was unhappy, and he had used one of the few words they got the gist of:  _ bad. _ Nightquake let out a sad whine that melted Rex’s heart in a second. He sighed and hugged the little dinosaur closer to him.

“Ok… You’re not bad babies, you’re _ good _ babies. But you still shouldn’t pick fights with nice dogs!” 

Both babies let out a pitiful squeak at that, but Rex had his attention drawn away as he noticed the dog in front of him had quietened down. He looked up at its owner and smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry about that Ma’am. Little dinosaurs just have a mind of their own…” He nervously chuckled.

But the woman just kept staring at him in silence with an utterly confused look on her face. Rex smiled painfully for a moment, unsure what he was supposed to do in this situation. What did normal people do when their velociraptor babies had run off at the pet store and had picked a fight with, and agitated, a random dog?

Well, normal people didn’t have that problem did they? But Rex did. And he decided it would be best to just slowly back away and nope back to his discarded pet carrier. He  _ had  _ already apologised after all. There wasn’t much else he could do than that. 

  
  


It was when he finally reached it and his basket that he realised he only had two of the three raptor babies accounted for. He dashed forward the last few steps and looked around frantically.

“Geminizzle! Gemi, where are you sweetheart?!” 

He was ready to make a mad dash to another area of the pet shop, but a single squeaking chirp from below made him stop instantly.

He crouched down and peeked into the pet carrier, and saw Geminizzle sat right at the back of it looking at him. She chirped happily when she saw him, which made him smile widely in relief. He then put the other two babies in carrier (who were thoroughly displeased by the situation) and pulled Geminizzle out at the same time. He held her in his left hand as he made sure the door to the carrier was shut tight, and put the padlock back on it for good measure. 

The two babies inside screeched in protest, but Rex wasn’t having it affect him. They deserved to be in time-out for running off and worrying him.

He turned his attention to Geminizzle and held her right up to his face. She squeaked and nuzzled her head against the end of his nose, which made him giggle happily.

“What a good girl you are Gemi! You stayed right where you were supposed to!” He cheerfully cooed at her.

She started purring at him happily, pleased by his soft tone and all the attention he was giving her. He decided, as she’d proved she wasn’t likely to run off at the first opportunity, to let her sit up on his left shoulder. As soon as he put her down, her little claws dug into his vest as she secured herself. She sniffed at, and then started curiously chewing on his wild shoulder-length hair that surrounded her. He laughed as her gentle pulling tickled, before he slowly moved to pick up his basket and the pet carrier again.

“C’mon you little scamps. Let’s move on…”

  
  


\-----

  
  


Rex walked along the high-street through the Syspocalypstar city centre. Every single person who walked past him ended up doing a double take and stopping as they looked at him in utter confusion. Rex had put the harnesses he'd bought on the raptor babies and was currently holding onto the leads as tight as he could, as all three of them buzzed with energy and pulled against them with all their tiny might. They kept hopping and screeching with delight as they darted from one side of the pavement to the other, constantly tangling their leads around each other and occasionally scurrying in-between Rex's legs. It took a great deal of effort and constant vigilance to combat them, and keep them from running into other pedestrians and accidentally tripping him over by tangling around his legs.

  


Eventually he had to stop, when Evanescence and Geminizzle started whining as they'd gotten particularly tangled around each other and annoyed when they couldn't pull away from one another.

Rex bent down and picked up Geminizzle so he could untie her from around Evanescence, who curiously watched on as her sister was lifted around her. Whilst they did that, Nightquake decided to start sniffing the top of Rex's boot, which he then quickly started gnawing on and growling at playfully. 

  
  


Just as Rex had finished untangling the raptors and put Geminizzle back on the ground, his attention was suddenly diverted upwards. On the road right next to him a police car had pulled up and blared its sirens for a moment to get his attention.

Out of the car stepped one (or rather, a pair of) police officers. It seemed as though he looked fairly grumpy as he walked over, and Rex knew immediately from the dark sunglasses he wore that Badcop was firmly in control.

  
  


"Afternoon guys! What's up?" Rex cheerfully called to them as he stood up straight.

Badcop remained as stoic as ever, as he looked at Rex with his usual resting glare.

"We've gotten a few concerned calls… Something about a man in an orange safety vest, running around with some large peculiar reptiles." He said, taking a glance down at the curious raptors sniffing and staring at him from behind the safety of Rex's legs.

"Oh gee guys, can't help you there! That could be anyone!" Rex teased with a smirk.

Badcop sighed and put a hand on his hip as he turned his attention back to Rex. 

"Do you have a license for these exotic animals Brickowski?" He asked.

But then there was a quick switch, and Scribblecop was smiling at him almost sheepishly. 

"Or some kind of specialist zoology degree perhaps?" He inquired. 

Rex shrugged.

"Well, I don't actually have either of those… But something tells me they don't even do anything like that for animals that are technically supposed to be extinct." 

Scribblecop frowned at him in confusion as he took another glance at the weird lizards sat at Rex’s feet. 

"Come again lad?"

"They're are baby velociraptors. Benny and Metalbeard helped me get them. We built a whole time machine and everything! You know, as you do. But don't worry! I've been taking care of raptors of all ages for 5 years! I know what I'm doing. Plus, it's not exactly like anyone else knows how to look after them, so, you can't exactly take them away because I don't have any paperwork for them." Rex explained, like anything about what he’d just said was a normal, regular occurrence.

The rather astounded police chief was so confused that he switched again, making Badcop sigh and lift his sunglasses slightly to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"Why must you always make everything 100 times more confusing for us Brickowski…?"

"Eh. I have a talent for it I suppose! Besides, anything involving time travel always immediately becomes more confusing." Rex chuckled.

  
  


At seeing his happy demeanor, and finally having gotten used to the strange new person talking to Rex, the raptor babies resumed their excited playing and energetic buzzing. They screeched at each other, Evanescence and Nightquake started nipping and growling at each other playfully, and Geminizzle squeaked as she spotted something interesting on the other side of the pavement. 

Badcop eyed them suspiciously. 

"Why are they screeching and trying to run away like that?" He asked bluntly. 

"Yeah, don't seem like you've got them very under control lad." Scribblecop asked after a quick switch.

Rex looked down at the raptors and took notice of their renewed energy. 

"Oh that's just because they're babies. They're very energetic and really don't like listening to instructions. They'll be a lot better behaved in a few months when they've grown up a bit. Today's their first outing in town ya see. They're excited." He nonchalantly explained.

Then, Evanescence let out a pained whine as Nightquake bit into her tail. Rex quickly, but gently, pushed Nightquake away from her with his boot. The annoyed little raptor then turned his attention to Rex’s boot and started gnawing aggressively on his steel toe caps. 

Scribblecop switched again. And Badcop slapped a hand to his helmet as he gestured with his other in frustration. 

"Brickowski, you can't just take dinosaurs out in public! What if they went on a rampage and hurt someone!"

Rex frowned at him and quickly bent down to pick up Geminizzle, who squeaked in confusion, before shoving her right in Badcop’s face.

"Really? C'mon! Look at this face!" Rex protested. 

Badcop spluttered, but before he could argue, Rex quickly put the tiny raptor into Badcop’s open hands. He held onto her on instinct. 

"You really think a little thing like this is gonna do any harm?" Rex chided. 

Badcop looked down at the tiny little purple dinosaur, looking up at him with her big wide, twinkling eyes and blushed. Mortified at such an un-tough reaction, he quickly switched with Scribblecop again, who stared down at the tiny little thing he was holding in wonder.

"Aww. It really is cute…" He smiled. 

Rex nodded sagely and chuckled as he looked at Geminizzle, before he looked back up and smirked at the pair of cops in front of him. 

"That she is… And what about you Bad? You think you'll need to lock her up for being illegally adorable?"

Scribblecop switched so Badcop could answer Rex. He had managed to wipe the blush off his face, but was obviously still struggling with getting rid of it entirely. He looked away from Geminizzle and cleared his throat.

"No, uh… No. But Brickowski, we can't just let you-" He started, but was cut off in an instant when Scribblecop took back control.

"Wait!" He interrupted. 

He frowned as a confused Badcop resumed control. 

"Hey! What are you-?"

He was cut off again as Scribblecop switched back, but instead of another change in command, he frowned, staring off at nowhere in particular for a moment silently. Rex just looked on and waited patiently, knowing the pair well enough to understand that they were debating something internally. 

After a few more seconds, Scribblecop turned his attention to Rex and smiled at him sweetly.

"Uh! Excuse us one second Rex.. And here, take this little darlin' back." He said as he gently handed Geminizzle back to Rex, before quickly turning away to go stand by their cop car.

Rex placed Geminizzle on his shoulders and let her crawl over him a bit as he absentmindedly stared on at the pair of cops having, what was probably, a very interesting internal argument in front of him.

After several minutes of silent arguing, with the occasional out loud outburst interspersed, they came back. Badcop looked at the raptors, then back up at Rex, and sighed.

"So you say you can train these guys to behave, and they can't do any harm currently?"

"They might try and gum you or accidentally knick you with a claw, but no, they can't hurt anyone." Rex reassured, giving Geminizzle a little pat on her head as she nuzzled at his neck. Badcop looked at her with the smallest ghost of a smile on his face. 

"...Well then. I suppose we can let you continue about your business. Just as long as you keep a tight leash on those little darl-"

He cut himself off immediately, and Rex did his best to hold back a snort of laughter as he smirked at him. Badcop glared at him with a stern frown, poorly hiding his soft slip up. 

_ "Dinosaurs. _ I was going to say little  _ dinosaurs… _ "

"Of course  _ officer, _ Scribb's and I believe you, right?" Rex teased with an air of sincerity.

Before Badcop could get anymore embarrassed, Scribblecop switched with him again. 

"Yes. Definitely." He reaffirmed. 

He then took a quick glance at all the raptors, smiling warmly at their collective cuteness, before facing Rex and beaming at him widely. 

"Well then, you're free to go Rex! Have a nice day!" He said cheerfully, but before he could turn to leave, a concerned and exasperated Badcop took back control.

"And can you at least  _ try _ to keep out of trouble?" He asked tiredly. Rex looked at him in surprise.

"Me? Get into some crazy trouble? I'd  _ never!" _ He innocently argued. Badcop just sighed and started walking back towards their car. 

"Uh huh, sure. See you around Brickowski."

"See ya guys." Rex called to them.

He then looked down at the raptor babies and decided to go straight to their last stop, thinking it would be best to get off the street, lest he risk dealing with an annoyed Badcop later who had to deal with more calls about him. 

  
  


\-----

  
  


Rex was at the supermarket, finally grabbing some of the essential shopping that he and Lucy needed. Luckily the babies had tuckered themselves out a bit after running around earlier, so that meant Rex could get some peace and quiet to do his shopping whilst they had a nap. Nightquake and Evanescence were curled up, fast asleep in his two vest pockets, whilst Geminzzle got pride of place as she sprawled out on the trolley’s baby seat. She’d proved herself to be a lot more reliable than the other two when it came to staying where she was supposed to and not running off. Though of course, Rex knew from his years of experience to never fully trust any raptor baby to not run off at a moment's notice. They were curious little guys after all, and anything could easily catch their eye and make them want to wander off to investigate. 

But at least at the moment, Geminzzle was happily snoring away and perfectly content to stay asleep in her seat. Rex smiled down at her and gave her a very light stroke along her back. Enough to give her a reassuring pet, but not too much so he didn’t disturb her. 

As he continued to push along his half full trolley, he noticed he’d almost gotten everything on the list he’d written. Mostly all he needed now was some drinks. 

  
  


Rex parked up his trolley to the side of the alise, giving the babies a quick glance to make sure they didn’t look like they were gonna wake up anytime soon, before he reached up for a heavy bottle of fizzy pop from the top shelf. As he lifted the bottom of it and took the weight of it in his right hand, he felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder that immediately made him put it back down and gasp.

"Ah! Crap…" He hissed as he rubbed his shoulder. Thankfully it was still fine and in the place it should be. He just seemed to have pulled a muscle a little bit.

"Mr Danger Fist…?" 

Rex looked up from his shoulder at a familiar meek voice to see the tall, lanky nurse from The Pits looking at him perplexed. Rex lit up and smiled at him.

"Oh hey! It's you! Steve, right?"

Steve looked at him in surprise. Both at the fact that an important fighter such as Danger Fist would care enough to remember his name, and that said fighter was currently out shopping like any other normal person would, whilst wearing a brightly coloured outfit with a blaring orange safety vest of all things. He'd only ever seen him in his gladiator outfit before, so to see that Rex's regular clothes didn't look at all apocalypty was a big surprise.

"Yeah, um. Are you alright Mr Danger Fist?"

"Oh yeah, I'm good. I was just trying to get that coke from up there, but I guess my shoulder wasn't so happy about that idea." Rex chuckled. Steve gasped and quickly put down his shopping basket in shock.

"You didn't dislocate it just now did you?!" 

"No, no! Just pulled a muscle a bit, that's all. No need to go into doting nurse mode." Rex placated, waving his hands in dismissal. 

"You really should be more careful Mr Danger Fist. You're still recovering! If you lift something heavy like that whilst you're still healing, you could risk it subluxing or fully dislocating again."

_ "Yeah, yeah! _ I got the lecture from the Doc, and I get it from my best friend practically every day. I don't need it from you too!" Rex grumbled irritability.

Steve frowned, looking somewhat hurt and disappointed. Rex immediately took note and sighed, speaking softly as he apologised.

"Sorry Steve, I didn't mean it like that."

Steve smiled sheepishly at him.

"No, no, it's fine! I get it. Uh, here! How about I grab this for you?"

Steve effortlessly reached up and grabbed a bottle of coke to hand to Rex. But as he looked down and Rex took it in his left hand, he finally noticed the two baby raptors that were fast asleep in Rex's vest pockets. He looked at them utterly confused, as an oblivious Rex placed the bottle in the trolley, giving the third sleeping raptor that sat in the baby seat a quick pat.

"Thanks." Rex said, smiling up at him.

Steve looked between Rex, the raptors, and back again completely bemused.

"Are those lizards?" He asked. Rex just laughed at him like he'd asked an utterly ridiculous question.

"Nah! These are baby velociraptors!"

Steve stared back at Rex for a moment, before looking down at the  ** _literal dinosaurs_ ** in his pockets, then at the one in the trolley, before finally looking back up at the very cheery, brightly coloured, dinosaur owning, robot fighting gladiator with the most confused look he'd ever had (and probably ever  _ would _ have) on his face.

"You're a very…  _ interesting man, _ Mr Danger Fist…"

Rex barked out a laugh and moved to stand beside Steve, roughly slapping a hand on his back in a boisterously friendly manner.

"Ha ha! Well you’re not wrong! And Steve,  _ please, _ you and I know each other well enough now! Call me Rex!" 

He looked surprised at that, both at the sudden jarring contact and the utterly friendly demeanor from who he primarily knew as such a fierce fighter.

“Oh… Uh- ok! Rex. You’re really sure?” He asked.

“Yeah! You’re my friend right? Sounds weird if you call me  _ ‘Mr Dangerfist’ _ all the time, huh?” Rex chuckled.

"I suppose it would…" Steve said as a small smile grew on his face.

Rex gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze before he removed his arm and stood back to rest his hands on his hips, as he smiled up at Steve. He rubbed his forearm as he sheepishly looked away from Rex.

"Hey, um, Rex? I gotta go I'm afraid, my shift at the hospital starts soon. But I could give you my number? In case you wanted to hang out… or something?" He asked with a meek yet hopeful smile.

Rex just beamed up at him, amazed and pleased to find that he still had it in him to open his heart to new people and make new friends.

"I'd love that…" He said softly. 

  
  


The two then exchanged numbers, before Steve finally left to get the last of his things and head off to work.

Rex stood looking down the aisle where he'd left for a long moment, before he looked back at Geminizzle in the trolley, and then down at the other two sleeping babies in his pockets

"What do you little guys say we finish up here and head home?"

  
  


\-----

  
  


"Hey Rex! How was your day out?" Lucy asked as he walked into the house and came into the living room.

He set a bag of shopping on the floor alongside the carry crate, which he then unlocked and opened. The three raptor babies inside immediately scrambled out and started darting around the room like crazy, practically bouncing off the walls from all the energy their nap gave them.

He looked up at Lucy and sighed with a tired, yet also pleased smile on his face.

  
_ "Eventful." _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baby raptor shenanigans are always cute :3 I love these guys!
> 
> And hey! We finally get to see everyone's favourite pair of cops!!! Who, despite their lack of screen time in this fic, were two of my fave characters when the first movie came out. I still love them a lot! And they will be showing up again later. 
> 
> Also big thanks to Shadowfear for doing that absolutely amazing and wonderful commission for me!!! :D I love it so much!!!   
(I will post a link to it soon :> but for now, go check out all of Shadow's other epic art if you haven't!   
https://shadowfear-art.tumblr.com/ )


	19. Systarian Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is currently the longest one of the whole story. And it's also my favourite :>

“You said it yourself, the babies will be fine! They’ll just stay in their pen and sleep through us being gone.” Lucy pointed out from her spot standing in the bathroom doorway, as she watched Rex lock shut a tall baby-gate that stretched across the living room archway.

He glanced into the dark room at the back corner by the window, where all three baby raptors were happily snoozing on a mountain of pillows in a tall custom built pen Rex had made.

“I know… But they’re still so little. I’m not sure if we should leave them unsupervised. What if something happened?” He worriedly asked as he turned away and walked over to her. 

Crossing her arms, she looked up at him with a questioning frown.

“Are you sure you’re not just trying to avoid going to the party?”

He looked down at her with a stern frown of his own, but that quickly changed to a sheepish grimace as he looked away from her.

“...Maybe a little.”

She groaned and threw her head back in exasperation.

“C’mon Rex! It’ll be fun!” She enthusiastically exclaimed. Rex pouted at her before he worriedly grimaced. 

“But it’s gonna be so incredibly…  _ Systarian…” _ He grumbled with a shudder.

It was one thing to wander around the more cutesy parts of Syspocalypstar, or hang out with Watevra, or even briefly visit the Systar System itself, but that would be nothing compared to tonight. This party would kick all that vividly coloured, glittery, cutesy crap up to 11… times 2! That'd be 22 times the normal level of Systarian that Rex was only just about ok with. He had no idea how he'd handle everything kicked into maximum overdrive. Maybe it would have been something his past self would have adored, but Rex was far more partial to rough and tough things. Like fighting, or space stuff, or dinosaur training.

All things that were the furthest thing from Systarian that you could probably get.

“Yeah, but all the others are gonna be there. And it  _ is  _ Watevra’s party! You know she’ll want to see you there!” Lucy pointed out.

She was right about all that of course. His friends were expecting to see him there, Watevra would be especially excited of course. She jumped at every chance she could get to see her  _ 'Padre'. _ And well, Rex had to admit that he liked the attention she gave him. Her bubbling happiness at just being around him really warmed his heart in a special way. There was almost nothing he loved more than spending time with his friends and them being happy to see him. So he supposed, just as he had when he'd agreed to go over a week ago, that he could lump an excessive overwhelming Systarian atmosphere if it meant he could have a fun time with his friends.

But even so, now that the night was finally here, he was debating if spending time with his friends in a place like  _ that _ was really worth it…

Of course, Lucy knew him well enough to know just what he was thinking, but she was sure Rex would be fine and have a perfectly good time once he got over his macho ego and actually went to the party. So she decided it would be best to kick him into gear before he could think of a way to back out at the last minute.

Maybe for once she could use that ego of his to her own advantage...

“Plus you did already say you’d go… You’d not wuss out of something, right?”

He snapped his gaze to her in shock, incredibly offended at the very notion. 

“No! Of course not!” He retorted, before he could even think about the consequences to what he'd just said. 

“Great! Then let’s get going!” 

Lucy grinned at him wickedly and grabbed his hand so she could pull him down the hallway in the direction of the front door. They were already halfway to the door when Rex finally registered what she'd said, and how she'd hoodwinked him into folding. He tried backpedaling a bit and planting his feet in the carpet, but Lucy didn't let up. 

“B-but! I’m not ready yet!” He protested. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder at him, but didn't stop dragging him on.

“You are, and you look great!”

He looked down at his outfit and huffed. It was the same dark blue one with green accents, a little embroidered dinosaur, bell bottom trousers, a sleeveless right arm, a long left sleeve with a wide cuff, and a large green R over his chest that Watevra had made for him about two months ago now. 

It wasn't bad, no, but it was a very  _ Systarian _ look. 

“No I don’t…” He muttered.

Lucy finally stopped at that. She turned to face him as he pouted at the floor. Then she put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it in reassurance, smiling up at him warmly.

“You  _ do!” _

He felt a bit better at that as he glanced at her, but wasn't at all convinced. Systarian style clothes just didn't suit him, not like they suited Lucy. Her outfit was far more fitting for her. The bright pink floaty dress had lighter pink and blue squiggles that matched her hair, with a black band around her waist and black strap peeking out the low neckline around her left shoulder that helped to perfectly balance out the vivid colours. It was casual, but fun, and oh so Lucy. Rex thought she looked perfect in it.

But then again, he supposed she could probably look good in pretty much anything. 

She then gave him a sarcastic frown and started pulling him along again.

“Now stop whining or we’re gonna be late!”

He looked away from her and sighed, this time deciding he might as well get it over with and follow her without protest.

“Whatever…”

He took one last glance at the living room as they went out the front door, before he looked down at his outfit, then back at Lucy and smiled as he thought about her compliment. 

  
  


\-----

  
  


Rex and Lucy were at Watevra's castle walking through a big crowd of people in a massive ballroom, when they finally spotted a familiar face. Unikitty was happily swaying and humming along to the song that was playing, in her fluffy scarf and bedazzled sunglasses. But she immediately stopped and lit up with a huge smile on her face when she spotted them, before she dashed forward through the crowd and barreled over to them.

"Rex!" She ecstatically exclaimed, right before she reached him and immediately stood on her back legs so she could wrap her front paws around his shoulders and nuzzle him in an affectionate hug. 

"You made it!!!" 

He laughed happily at her friendly enthusiasm and returned her hug right away, giving her a tight squeeze. 

After a moment or so, Unikitty pulled away to look at Lucy whilst she still rested her paws on Rex's shoulders.

"And Wyldstyle, you're here too! Always good to see you."

"Likewise Unikitty." Lucy said with a sweet smile. It was partly because she was happy to see her friend, but she also smiled because she was so pleased to see Rex and Unikitty getting along so well. They really seemed to have grown closer again, maybe even more so than they had been before. Which surprised her, but in a wonderful way.

Then, Unikitty let go of Rex to sit as she talked to them.

"So what are you guys gonna do now then? You gonna do some dancing too?!"

She looked enthusiastically at Rex when she asked that, and he tried to casually shrug the idea off as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Uh, I don't know about that… I don't really dance…"

Lucy frowned at him sternly. Both he and her knew he could dance, and that he found it fun, so she wasn't about to let him get out of it that easy. Otherwise he'd probably just try to avoid everything someone suggested they do for the whole night.

_ "Rex…" _

He glanced at her and smiled meekly. 

"Ok, I  _ do, _ but not really in front of other people. And especially not to something so cutesy like  _ this." _ He said, looking almost disgusted as they listened to the overly happy, twinkly song,  _ 'Come Together Now' _ that was playing over the speakers.

Lucy looked between him and one of the speakers for a moment, before she had an idea.

"Wait here a sec, I'll be right back." She said as she quickly jogged off somewhere into the crowd, leaving a rather confused Unikitty and Rex behind. 

  
  


"Wonder what Luce's planning…"

Unikitty shrugged at him, just as curious, but none the wiser.

"Guess we'll find out in a sec."

  
  


After a couple minutes,  _ 'Come Together Now' _ finished. But instead of some other equally preppy song playing, a long, droning guitar chord blared out of the speakers at an unnecessarily high volume. Practically everyone in the ballroom immediately covered their ears in shock at the harsh sounding noise, Unikitty included, but Rex lit up with a beaming smile as he immediately recognised what song it was.

  
  


"Wait a minute… That's…"

"Kickstart my heart?"

Rex turned and saw Lucy beside him, giving him a wry smirk as she held her hands behind her back.

"Luce, did you-?" 

Lucy nodded as she interrupted him.

"Uh huh. Balthazar is DJing and he owed me a favour. Now come on!"

Suddenly she grabbed his hand and started pulling him elsewhere. Rex shot a shocked glance over his shoulder at Unikitty.

"Wait! Uh-!"

Unikitty just shook her head at them and chuckled as she waved a paw at them.

"Have fun guys!" 

  
  


Lucy quickly brought the two of them to a standstill in the middle of a more open and less crowded section of the ballroom, which Rex quickly realised was the dancefloor. Lucy turned to face him, before she started doing some fancy footwork in time with the song kicking up. 

Rex's eyes darted around in worry. All the other people in the crowd looked very confused from the choice of song, and immediately drew their attention over to Rex and Lucy as she was now the only one dancing.

A pang of embarrassment shot through Rex, as an old buried feeling of wanting to fit in with the crowd briefly resurfaced with so many confused eyes on them. 

"What are you doing Luce?" He worriedly asked.

Leaning closer to him for a moment, she smirked devilishly.

"What's it look like, tough guy?  _ We're _ dancing!"

He blinked at her in surprise, as the familiarity of her words started to dawn on him.

"Wait,  _ 'we' _ are?"

"Uh huh. Unless you're too scared by my  _ awesome _ skills to show off in front of all these people?" She taunted, as she span around with a flourish.

He looked around at the crowd. They looked less confused and more curious now. A few of them had even started bobbing their heads to the catchy energetic beat as they got used to the strange, boisterous song.

Rex was still quite unsure about dancing in front of so many other people. He'd never danced like this in front of so many total strangers before. He'd only really danced on his own, or with his raptors, or a few friends before, and yeah, he was was pretty good, but he wasn't super confident like he was with his fighting or something. This was different. But he wasn't about to chicken out and let Lucy show him up. He knew she was goading him on purpose to get him to dance too, but if it motivated him, then he was willing to go along with it.

"Well, I guess when you put it like that, I suppose I can show you and everyone else here how it's done!" He said with a slightly nervous smirk.

  
  


Rex started dancing like Lucy. He started off moving slowly and unsure, constantly glancing at the people around him, but as he focused on the song, he found himself getting more and more into it. It's fast tempo was incredibly energetic and catchy, meaning he soon lost himself in just enjoying it and dancing along. 

He focused solely on the song and on Lucy. There was no doubt that  _ she _ could certainly dance. He supposed she must have learnt from her days as a pop star. 

He chuckled at that thought. To think, he was at a party dancing with a literal (former) pop star. It was something his old self would have never believed possible.

  
  


Lucy laughed as she did a particularly fancy twirl and smiled at Rex. If there was one thing she never got tired of, it was hearing Rex laugh and seeing him happy.

He grinned down at her, and seeing that made her quickly take his hands in hers so the two of them could dance as one. 

Every movement they did after that was together. They jumped up in sync, they kicked their legs out in opposite directions, they slid away from each other whilst keeping a hold of one hand before sliding back together again. All things that impressed every single on-looker around them, and inspired them enough to join in and dance as well.

When the slow part of the song came, Rex lifted his right arm up so Lucy could twirl underneath him. She then leant back against his chest as he lowered her into a dip hold in his left arm. They locked eyes briefly, smiling lovingly at each other, before Rex lifted her up again so the two could slow dance and sway together. They held their hands together, fingers intertwined as they knowingly waited for the upcoming change of pace.

Just like they had the last time they'd danced to this song, they pushed their opposite hands away from on another in sync with the sudden crashes of drums. And then when everything picked up again, then went into energetic overdrive.

They moved even more in sync than before. Twirling around each other, before taking a hold of the other again so they could start spinning in tandem. They used their weights to lean back, keeping each other perfectly balanced as that span in circles, getting faster and faster with each rotation.

The sound crescendoed with increasingly fast drums and rapid guitar riffs, which made Rex pick Lucy up by her waist mid spin. With an arm securely wrapped around her middle, he lifted her up just enough so her feet wouldn't catch on the floor as he span and twirled faster on the spot. She held onto him and laughed with excited joy at the thrill of it all, and Rex found himself joining in too. 

Eventually the cacophony of chords and instruments finally climaxed and came to an end. And on the final note, Rex halted his spin and planted his legs wide apart as he let Lucy fall into his right arm and quickly lower her into a dip hold.

As she leant back and held onto his arm, the two stared at each other, panting from exhaustion from their energetic dancing, but also beaming widely from excitement. They heard a number of people around them cheer, but neither really cared about that much. All their focus was on each other, because that was the only thing that was important.

  
  


Slowly though, another much calmer song started playing, and Rex carefully lifted Lucy back up into a standing position. His arm lingered around her waist for a couple moments longer than necessary, and she felt a pang of disappointment in the back of her mind when he finally removed it. 

They both chuckled at each other, still coming down from all the adrenaline pumping excitement from their dancing. Without a word, they both walked away from the dancefloor, thinking it best to take a breather to recover.

On their way to the edge of the crowd, Rex spotted yet another familiar face and lit up.

  
  


“Oh hey! Benny’s over there. Mind if I go say hi Luce?”

Lucy looked in the same direction as Rex and caught the bright sparkly star shaped glasses on the top of Benny's helmet over the top of the crowd. She grinned up at Rex as he looked at her for confirmation

“Sure, go for it! Go have fun! I’m gonna see if I can find Metalbeard. Meet up with you later?”

He smiled warmly at her.

“‘Course. See you later alligator.”

“In a while crocodile.” She chuckled. 

  
  


They parted and headed off in different directions. Once Rex reached Benny, he grinned widely and chuckled to get his attention.

“Heya Ben!”

Benny paused mid conversation with some Systarian woman to look at Rex and give him a big wave.

“Oh hi Rex! Good to see you! We saw you and Wyldstyle dancing! You were great!”

“Thanks.” He said with a slight blush, which quickly made him clear his throat in an effort to get rid of it.

“So! You enjoying the party?” Rex asked. 

“Oh yeah! It’s great! The Queen really outdid herself with this one! Sweet and I were talking about the awesome chocolate and cheese fondue fountains they got at the tables over there!” Benny said with a wide smile as he turned to face his Systarian friend.

“Yeah! I was just telling Benny that we have to go check them out later!” She exclaimed.

It was then that Rex fully took notice of the Systarian with Benny. She was fairly tall, with silvery purple hair tied up in two pigtails, one of her eyes was light blue whilst the other was a vivid pink (two colours that immediately reminded Rex of Lucy's hair), and she had a pastel purple floaty top on over a pair of purpley blue galaxy pattern leggings with sparkly silver boots. 

She of course looked incredibly Systarian, like almost everything else here tonight, but Rex didn't remember ever seeing her before. Although she did seem to be pretty friendly with Benny, and they did seem to be on a first name basis, so maybe he had? And besides that, besides the fact that he didn't immediately recognise her (which was rather odd for him considering he was very good at remembering pretty much anyone he met) there just  _ something _ about her… Something that was telling him she wasn't a complete stranger to him...

"Have we met? You seem familiar." He asked as he squinted slightly at her. She shrugged nervously at him, throwing a glance in Benny's direction, before putting on a chipper smile and answering Rex. 

"We kinda did, once. I invited the leaders of Apocalypseburg to the queen's wedding. But Benny's told me so much about you, and I-" 

She kept taking after that, but Rex couldn’t hear her. As soon as he’d realised what she was on about and who she really was, he froze in horror. This sweet little  _ sickeningly Systarian  _ woman was somehow  _ her. _

He was face to face with  _ her. _

And he couldn’t deal with that. 

" _ I have to go! _ " He suddenly shouted hysterically, as he immediately turned and started walking away at a rapid pace. 

Sweet Mayhem stopped mid-sentence, confused by Rex’s sudden departure. Benny looked at him in worry, then gave a quick glance to Mayhem.

“Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.” He told her, before quickly floating off through the crowd and following after Rex. 

  
  


When Benny caught up with Rex, he put his prosthetic hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

"Rex are you ok?" he asked gently.

Rex turned to face him with a look that was stuck somewhere between haunted and furious. 

"I don't wanna talk about this right now Benny. You just go have fun with-” He paused, looking incredibly nervous for a brief second, before wiping the look away to replace it with an awkward smile. 

_ “-just _ \- go have fun. I'm just gonna go see what snacks they got and those fountain things you were on about, and hang around there a while."

His eyes darted towards the other side of the massive ballroom as he spoke, and he didn’t even look Benny in the eye before he turned away again and walked to the tables in question. 

Benny frowned at his back as he watched Rex disappear into the crowd. After a minute or so Mayhem walked up to him and put a hand on his left arm to get his attention.

"Is your friend ok?" She asked. 

"No, but he knows when he wants help, and he doesn't want it from me right now. We should probably go find Wyldstyle and send her to him." He worriedly said. 

The two of them then started their search of the crowd in the opposite direction that Rex had walked.

  
  
  


Meanwhile, Rex had made it to the number of long tables filled with a bounty of different foods. He looked over it all, thoroughly impressed. Oh what he wouldn't give to put a huge helping of every single different delicious looking thing on a plate and tuck into it, but with the wide selection there was, he knew it'd be physically impossible. Also it would probably be a terrible idea to stuff his face, especially if Lucy wanted to dance with him some more later.

So he got a little paper plate and put a few particularly eye-catching things on it. But as he started to munch at a slice of rocky road, his mind began to wander back to his encounter a few minutes ago.

Of all the people for Benny to be hanging out with, and for Rex to have met tonight, it  _ had _ to have been  ** _her_ ** _ . _

_ Why did it have to be  _ ** _her?_ **

Couldn't he have one night of fun without any interruption???

Well apparently not.

It looked like  _ General Mayhem _ had come along and ruined everything for him once again…

Her voice hadn't been modulated, she hadn't been in the white armour he remembered, but for some reason seeing her in that sweet Systarian get-up just made him hate her even more. Which Rex found rather impressive, given that he'd thought his hatred for her couldn't possibly grow beyond what it already was. He'd spent so long when he'd still had hope of being rescued waiting on Undar just thinking about her. Her emotionless, inexpressive helmet, her grating robotic voice that had been permanently ingrained into his mind, how she'd belittled and ignored him, finding him so unimportant and not even worth a moment of her time, everything! He'd had plenty of time to dwell on all that and so,  _ so _ much more...

Part of him felt sick seeing Benny being so happy and chummy with her. How could he even  _ stand _ to be near her?! She'd been the one to steal him and the rest of their friends from Apocalypseburg. She'd been the one who'd separated Emmet from his family! And now that Rex had finally gotten his family back, that old pain and rage at Mayhem was reawakened with a burning renewed vigor. 

It had been her fault.

Everything was  _ her _ fault.

  
  


A cookie that Rex had brought up to his mouth crumbled to dust as he crushed it in his tight fist.

  
  


_ He  _ ** _hated_ ** _ that woman. _

No, it wasn't hate, that was far too  _ weak _ a word to use for what he felt. 

Loathed? Despised? Detested? Abhorred?

Rex listed all those words and more as he took a big bite out of a sausage roll and chewed it angrily.

Eventually he decided that he couldn't settle on a single word for what he felt. None of them were strong enough. Not even a combination of them all put together would be.

  
  


Maybe in recent months Rex had gotten better at opening his heart to others, but Mayhem was the one person he was determined to keep it locked up tighter than Fort Knox for. He had no  _ want  _ and no  _ need  _ to know her. Maybe Benny did and, well, Rex had no clue what the others thought of her, but frankly he didn't give a shit. They could do whatever they wanted. He would never understand  _ why _ they would want to be friendly with her, but as long as  _ he _ didn't have to be anywhere near her, then he didn't really care what they did. 

All he wanted was to never see her stupid cutesy face ever again. He was sick of her coming along and ruining everything. One time had already been far,  _ far _ too much for him.

  
  


It was after that thought that he'd noticed his plate was now empty. He looked over the table again and thought about getting more, but immediately stopped himself. Obviously trying to distract himself from his thoughts with food hadn't worked at all, and he doubted his stomach would thank him for overloading it. It hadn't ended well the last time he'd tried that...

Maybe something else would work?

He glanced around and spotted a really big, ornate glass bowl filled with pink punch further down the table. That could work. At least he wouldn't upset his stomach from drinking a lot of it. It was just juice or something after all.

He walked over to it, looking at it curiously before grabbing an empty plastic cup and pouring himself some of it with the ladle that had been sat in the bowl. He sloshed the liquid around in his cup, studying it intently. It was bright and pink and incredibly bubbly. It practically  _ screamed _ Systarian at him. But despite that, he decided to try it anyway. 

He was actually pleasantly surprised. 

It was overly sweet, yes, but it also had a nice mix of citrus fruits that mixed rather well with something in it that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

He ended up drinking the whole cup rather quickly once he got used to the sweet taste. He used to love overly sweet things, and so a part of him still really did. Plus he supposed he was at a party after all. It wouldn’t hurt to splurge a little and have a few cups of something sugary to take his mind off of things. 

Halfway through his second cup full he decided to try and pick out what fruits were in it. He thought it would definitely be a good way to distract himself from anymore thoughts about  _ her. _ He really shouldn’t have dwelled so long on the subject in the first place. He was at a party! He was supposed to be having fun. So he pushed his worries to the back of his mind and focused on the fruity flavour of his punch.

He finished his second cup and moved onto his third. 

There was definitely grapefruit in it, which was mostly why the whole thing was pink. Though it probably did have a helping of food colouring to add to that too. It did have to look vibrant and Systarian after all. Wouldn’t want it being some mucky, dusty, apocalypty-looking orangey colour or something. 

He was sipping his fourth cup when things started to feel a bit…  _ off. _

He’d deciphered that the punch had grapefruit, orange, lemon and lime in it, as well as a whole heaping of sugar probably. But there was another taste in there, one that was vaguely familiar but he had trouble placing. He turned away from staring off into the distance in the ballroom to look back at the punch bowl. Weirdly though when he did it, the movement gave him a bit of a dizzy feeling.

That was strange. Why would turning around make him at all dizzy? 

He wasn’t sure, but decided to shrug it off and go back to figuring out the last ingredient in the punch. 

He started chugging down a fifth cup. 

Just what could that odd taste be? 

Maybe it was something else sweet. He vaguely recalled some old recipe he’d seen mentioning putting some kind of maple syrup in punch, but he wasn’t quite sure about that. And for some reason the thought didn’t seem quite so important to him anymore. Maybe it was just water or something? They probably had that in there somewhere right?

Wait...

Why was he thinking about all this again?

There was a reason he was thinking about punch ingredients wasn’t there? What was that? Was it even important anymore?

Well, given that he’d forgotten the reason, he supposed it didn’t matter that much and wasn’t really worth remembering. He was just happy that it tasted so fruity. He really liked fruity things. They were so sweet and nice!

He’d finished his fifth drink and was holding the empty cup over the bowl when he started pouring himself a sixth. He lifted the full ladle over the cup, but for some reason when he tipped it, he ended up pouring some over his hand instead of where he’d been aiming. 

Now that was odd… 

That wasn’t where the drink was supposed to go…

Why had it done that and made his hand all wet? 

It was very rude of it! Now he was gonna get all sticky when it dried out! 

He grumbled a little, but then he just giggled and shrugged it off. He couldn’t stay mad at something so nice and tasty! 

  
  


He was drinking that cup slowly when his mind began to wander again, this time in a very random direction. He followed his mind down that ridiculous road of thinking as he stared up at a pretty sparkly disco ball in the distance…

  
  


\-----

  
  


Lucy made her way through the now incredibly packed ballroom on her way to the food tables.

Benny and Mayhem had found her and told her about their meeting with Rex. So following their advice, she was heading over to him right away. Unfortunately though, it had taken the two of them a fair while to find her, and even more time was being added the longer it took her to fight her way through so many people. She just hoped Rex would still be there and that he was alright…

  
  


When she finally did make it there, she was relieved to see him standing next to one of the tables drinking out of a pink plastic cup.

He took notice of her as soon as she was in his line of sight. He looked almost shocked to see her. She saw him gasp dramatically in surprise, before lighting up with the widest, dorkiest smile on his face that she’d seen him do in years.

She stood in front of him and he gazed down at her in wonder, which she found rather odd, before he remembered something that slapped him in the face with realisation.

_ “Heeeeeyyyyy!!! Lucy! Hi! Hey! I jus had the most amazing-est thought!” _

She was stunned by how he’d spoken. His words were slurred, he spoke in a far higher pitch than his usual gruff tone, and he seemed to sway a bit as he stood.

He then clumsily slapped his right hand against her shoulder and rested it there, as he leaned in closer and started gesturing with wide unsteady motions with his left.

_ “Like- Plastic donasours, right- Plastic is maded from oil. Which comed from? DINOSAIRS!” _ He dramatically shouted.

Ok, something was  _ definitely _ up with him...

_ “Plastic dinosaurs are made of IRL dinosaurs… Isss that cool or sssad??” _ He frowned at her when he said that, looking rather worried as he pondered the thought and tried to come to a conclusion himself. 

She smiled at him awkwardly and patted her hand against the one that rested on her shoulder, as she started to get an idea of what was going on.

“That’s… That’s great babe, really cool.” She reassured. 

He lit up considerably at that and grinned at her, evidently very pleased. She slowly removed his hand from her shoulder as she glanced down at the bright pink liquid in Rex's cup, before leaning to the side to get a look at the same coloured liquid in a practically empty punch bowl. She gritted her teeth in a grimace as she looked at it, then back up at Rex and his bright red cheeks and dopey grin.

“How much punch have you had tonight?” She asked. He shrugged nonchalantly.

"Many,  _ maaaannnnnnyyyyy _ glassesss…Why?" 

She hissed through her teeth, realisation dawning on her.

“Because I’m  _ prettyyyy _ sure it’s spiked.” She said with a glance at his drink.

Rex looked down at his cup with a deep frown. He had thought it had just been normal punch he was drinking. But then again, his head  _ did  _ feel a little fuzzy, and there had been that one part of it he hadn’t been able to place, so he thought it best to confirm Lucy’s and his growing suspicions. 

He lifted his cup and took a small sip of his  _ ‘punch’, _ before lowering the cup again. He smacked his lips as he savoured and analysed the taste of the drink on his tongue. And yeah, now that he knew what to look for, hidden in there behind all that mixed fruity flavour was indeed a hint of alcohol. It was definitely strong, like vodka or something, but it had been very well disguised by the rest of the strong citrus flavours, not to mention his thoroughly distracted mind. 

He looked at Lucy, who stared back at him quizzically, before he grinned at her with a wide, dopey smile. 

"Huh… You'rrrre right. Ha-ha!  _ Whoopsie daisy!"  _ He giggled, before he quickly necked the rest of his drink down in one go.

She immediately let out a strangled cry of surprise and snatched his empty cup off of him before he could even  _ try  _ to refill it again. 

“OKAAAAY! I think that’s enough punch for tonight, don’t you?” She said as she tried to move herself in between Rex and the rest of the punch in the bowl on the table. 

He backed up a bit, but spluttered as he tried to peek over her shoulder and eye up the bowl again. 

“But isss fruity! I like fruity!” He eloquently protested. 

She tried to coerce him away from the table with a gentle push to his back as she turned him to the side. 

“Well we have  _ plenty _ of fruit juice at home you can have. C’mon, let’s go.” She said as the two of them started walking away. She thought by the way Rex was swaying a fair bit as he stood, and by how slurred his speech was, that he’d  _ really  _ had more than he could handle. He  _ had _ said that time they went to the bar that he was a lightweight, just like he had been as Emmet, and it seemed he was right.

Rex's attention was finally drawn away from the table however, and he looked down at her utterly confused.

“Go? I dun wanna go yet!” 

She sighed in exasperation.

“Yeah well, you kinda accidentally got yourself absolutely hammered Rex. I think we should go home so you can sleep it off.” 

She had a hand against his back as she tried to usher him towards the exit and the portal home, but then he sped up a little and she lost her hold on him.

“I wanna go dance some more!!” He excitedly shouted as he suddenly darted forward and turned to head in the direction of the dance floor. 

“Rex, no!” She cried with her hand still outstretched.

"REX  _ YES!" _ He shouted as he ran further away and disappeared into the crowd.

  
  


She ran after Rex immediately, pushing her way through the packed dance floor as she chased after him, all whilst trying to ignore that one annoyingly catchy song that had just started playing.

She did her best to keep up with him and keep her sight locked onto his dark blue outfit, but it was proving difficult with so many people. 

Why did he have to run off like that?

Just what was he thinking?!

Well, she guessed he wasn't.

Rex could be reckless enough on his own, but combine that with the 0 inhibitions that getting absolutely wasted on spiked punch gave him? Well that was just the ultimate recipe for disaster.

He pushed his way through a particularly close group of people who immediately returned to their huddle once he'd gone, effectively cutting her off from him. She desperately tried to shove her way through as well, but they didn't budge. She peeked through them and noted the direction Rex was heading, before she growled in irritation and darted around the group. 

  
  


She glanced around frantically once she'd made it to the other side, but it was no use, she couldn't see him at all. She couldn't spot neither his blue outfit, nor his hair, which she thought would have been easier given he was on the taller end of people at the party.

So she power walked in the direction she'd seen Rex go, looking up and around for him everywhere, really wishing that literally anything other than  _ 'Catchy Song' _ was playing. She hated the fact that it'd probably be stuck inside her head for ages afterwards. But then a familiar sound cut above the annoying track.

It was Rex's giggly, snorting laugh. 

And it was coming from below and from her right. 

She pushed her way past a few people and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what Rex was doing. 

  
  


“HA HA! My body is worming! I didn’t know I could do this!” He giggled, as he laid on the floor wiggling up and down to the song. A couple people dancing around him looked down at him and cheered as he smiled and laughed.

He then caught sight of Lucy looking down at him and laughed even louder as the mere sight of her filled him with even more bubbling happiness.

She'd followed him!

And now she'd found him!

That made him feel weirdly fuzzy inside, even more so than he already felt, and it gave him an idea.

Quickly he pushed himself up to a standing position, and before Lucy could even register what was going on, he'd turned and ran away again.

“Ha, ha! Yoooou caaaaan’t catch me Lucy!” he impishly taunted.

She cried out in exasperation, but he moved too quick, and was gone out of her sight before she'd even made it to the first few people he'd darted past.

  
  


Once again she was forced to search for him. She was getting really frustrated with it to be honest.

That was the one thing about Rex that really annoyed her at times; he could be the most reckless dumbass dork that didn't always think things through. That  _ damned _ overconfidence of his! Maybe it helped him overcome his issues, but she hated how thoughtless it could make him. And that was an especially terrible combination that only amplified with how drunk he was.

  
  


Suddenly though she heard his distinct chortling laugh again, but this time it was coming from…  _ above her. _

She ran over to the sound and slowly looked upwards, her heart stopping instantly in shock, before she suddenly exploded in outraged surprise.

  
  


“Oh, _by The Man Upstairs,_ **_what is he doing!?!?_**_”_ She screamed.

  
  


Above her, Rex was on a huge chandelier. He was sat on the large round part of it, hanging onto the thick cable attaching it to the ceiling as he leaned back and made the whole thing sway wildly. Below, a number of people were watching him. Among them were Benny, Mayhem, and even Batman, who was also videoing the whole thing on his phone. Benny looked incredibly confused, Mayhem was horrified, and Batman just couldn't stop giggling no matter how much he tried.

Lucy walked to stand beside them, her gaze transfixed on Rex as he laughed enthusiastically and swung the chandelier in another direction.

“WHEEE!” He shouted loudly.

Lucy saw the chandelier wobble worryingly as he did that, and panic gripped her heart in an instant.

“REX! GET THE FUCK DOWN FROM THERE!!!”

He glanced down at Lucy, a devilish grin on his face as he raised his hand to quizzically hold his chin in thought.

“Hmmmmmm… Nnnnope!”

Lucy looked up at him in utter dismay. She vaguely heard Mayhem tell Benny she was going off to get some help, but she didn't really register it. All her attention was on Rex. She was far too scared for his safety to focus on anything else.

What if dislocated his shoulder again by leaning his weight in it too much? What if he fell? What kind of damage would a fall from the high ballroom ceiling to the hardwood floor do to him?! She didn't want to even think about that. She had to get him down, and she had to do it now!

“Rex please! It’s dangerous! And you’re drunk as hell! You’re gonna hurt yourself!”

He frowned down at her.

“ _ Danger _ is my middle name! Or, my last name… Or… Uh.” He paused, for some reason he was unable to decipher his thought as it confused him. But he decided it didn't matter and just shrugged it off with a wave of his hand.

“Ah! Who cares?” He giggled.

But as he looked down at Lucy, he finally noticed something was wrong. He thought she looked kinda sad or something. So he decided he should do something just for her to cheer her up! Something cool!

“Heeeeeyyyyyy Lucy! I’m gonna do a flip off of this, just for yooooouu!” He called down.

She looked absolutely horrified at that.

_ “Please _ don’t!” She cried.

But Rex didn't take notice. He'd already decided on his idea and committed to doing it. He stuck his tongue out as he carefully thought about his next move and put himself in position.

“Ok, I’m gonna do it now!” He called out when he was ready. Lucy's heart leapt to her throat as all she could do was watch on in horror.

Then Rex swung the chandelier back before rocking it forward again.

  
  


“NO RAGRETS!!!”

  
  


And he jumped off.

  
  


But as luck would have it, Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi was waiting for him underneath the chandelier. She had shapeshifted herself to be tall enough to catch him, so fortunately he didn’t end up falling very far. He landed safely in her soft, slightly squishy arms, avoiding hitting the hardwood floor instead. When he realised he had landed in a way he hadn’t expected, he looked around confused. His eyes met Watevra’s face and he smiled at her in surprise. 

“Oooohhhh heeeeyyyy! It’s yooouuuu! My sweetheart!”

She smiled and giggled back at him.

“Well  _ hey  _ to you too, Padre! You look like you’re enjoying yourself.” 

He nodded at her, but the movement made him dizzy and made his head loll from side to side as he spoke.

“Yeeeaaaahhhh iss a grrreat party. I drankded soooooooo much punch! Did ya see my flip?” 

“Yeah I did. It was great.” 

He looked very pleased with himself as he smiled up at her. He knew that flip would be awesome! Whilst he was distracted by that, she looked down to her side and grabbed the attention of her aide.

“Psst! Ice Cream Cone! I need you to go change that punch right away!”

“Yes your majesty.” He bowed and gave her a curt nod, before rushing off in the direction of the tables. Rex looked at him in awe and whispered to Watevra. 

_ “Woah… That dude is made of soooo much ice cream.” _

“Yes he is.” she affirmed. Rex just kept on looking at him until he eventually disappeared into the crowd.

_ “ _ ** _I wanna eat his face!_ ** _ ” _ he determinedly whispered. Watevra just shook her head and laughed.

“Yeah, don’t we all.”

She turned her attention to Lucy, who looked somewhat relieved but still quite concerned, as she made her way over to her.

“Here you go Wyldstyle, I believe this belongs to you.”

Watevra made herself shorter and lowered Rex into Lucy’s open arms. She was a bit taken aback by how heavy he was, and did her best to hold him bridal style in her arms. It was a good thing years of building and fighting had left her pretty strong. Rex however, didn’t seem to notice, and instead focused his attention on the fact the he was now super,  _ duper  _ close to Lucy. He smiled widely at her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, snuggling her tightly.

Queen Watevra chuckled at them.

“You know, I love partying as much as anyone else, but I think maybe he’s had enough partying for one night. Don’t you?”

Lucy looked at the big, goofy, oblivious grin on Rex's bright red face and thoroughly agreed.

_ “Definitely.” _

Rex was distracted from his hugging when his foggy mind was able to catch up with what they were saying. He scoffed at Lucy incredulously. 

“Pshh!  _ Whaaaaaaat? _ I’m f-ff- I’m  _ fine! _ What yoooou talking about?” he very badly slurred. Lucy looked back at him with an expression that read _ 'are you fucking kidding me?' _

“Oh really? You’re fine? Alright, answer this and we can stay: what’s 72+23?” 

He appeared annoyed for a moment, before he looked down and thought about it. His face contorted and he bit his lip in intense thought.

“It’s… It’s um… Uh…" 

He frowned, trying to add the numbers up as best he could. It should have been simple, but for some reason everything was all muddled in his mind and he couldn't keep track of it all. 

"Thasss not a fair question!” he blurted out. She just sighed and shook her head.

“C’mon, babe, let’s go home.”

She turned away from Watevra and the others and headed towards the exit. Rex thought about protesting or maybe asking for another question to answer so they could stay, but he decided not to. He found he quite liked being carried by Lucy. It was nice to be so close to her. And as she walked, it made him rock gently from side to side. It was so nice and soothing. When coupled with the fact that she was warm and he could hug her super tight, it almost made him want to drift off to sleep. He wished he could just stay in her arms forever.

So, he closed his eyes and rested his head against her shoulder. Happy enough to stay there as long as he could, no matter where they were going.

  
  


When they got outside, Lucy tried to put him down so he could walk. But as soon as his feet hit the floor and he was under his own weight, he started swaying wildly and ended up falling over on the pavement. It looked like the rest of that alcohol had finally hit him. She sighed and helped him up on his feet again, keeping a firm hold around his waist to keep him upright. Even so, he was still swaying quite a lot. She’d never be able to walk him to the portal like this. He could barely even stand!  _ Urgh! _ If she found out who had spiked that damn punch, she had half a mind to  _ punch them! _

“Looks like I’ll have to carry you to the portal Rex. Come on up.” 

She bent her knees and crouched slightly, gesturing him to come forward. He thought very carefully about his every movement, sticking his tongue out in concentration. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and staggeringly inched himself forward slightly, before jumping upwards and hooking his legs around her waist. She quickly put her arms around his legs to hold him up, and leant backwards slightly as she straightened her legs again. She grunted with effort as she got used to holding his weight. He may have been slim, but he also had a lot of heavy muscle and was generally bigger than her too. At least this method of carrying him would be easier to keep up than going bridal style all the way to the portal. 

She started walking in the direction of the portal, starting off slow, but quickly picking up the pace as she got used to carrying Rex. He leant forward against her, holding his arms tightly around her back and shoulders, and resting his head next to hers. He smiled widely as his already bright red cheeks got even redder, and he nuzzled against her. He liked being so close to her. She was warm, and huggable, and he could even smell the nice strawberry scent of her shampoo from this distance too! He liked it. He liked  _ her  _ too.

She on the other hand was starting to feel tired from the strain on her arms and back, and was getting a little exasperated with the whole situation. He hummed as he nuzzled against her face, but unfortunately his annoyingly scratchy stubble rubbing against her was keeping her from really appreciating the sweetness of his action. 

“When we get home, you’re getting a big glass of water and going straight to bed. You hear?”

“Uh huh.” He hummed, obviously not paying attention to what she was saying and still just focusing on being close to her. 

“Let’s just hope you don’t throw up and we have a repeat of the ice cream incident again...” She exasperatedly huffed.

That remark was able to cut through his loving daze. She was annoyed. But why? He guessed he had ended up unintentionally drinking a fair amount of strong alcohol. And it had seemed to make him a _bit_ tipsy… Well, actually, no, that was an understatement. He was downright drunk as a skunk, but he was only just becoming aware of that fact now. He was so out of it that he’d tried to do a flip off a chandelier when he couldn’t even walk! That wasn’t exactly the kind of thing sober people did, was it? How had he not noticed he was so drunk? Why did he even think that had been a good idea?

Wait. 

That had probably caused a scene hadn’t it? He’d embarrassed Lucy in front of all those Systar people. And now she had to leave the party early and carry his heavy ass all the way home… 

And on top of that, he was so drunk, he could quite possibly end up throwing up later. Then she'd have to deal with all the grossness of helping him through it. All of that was probably really annoying for her. It looked like he'd made yet another mess that she'd have to deal with the fallout of...

He hugged her tighter as she continued to carry him, resting his head on his arm. 

_ “I’m s-sorry.” _ He whispered. 

She sighed sadly, immediately losing her irritation when she realised she'd upset him.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know that punch was spiked.” She tried to reassure him.

But it didn't work.

“I shouldn’t’ve drank so much of it anyway. I’m sorry... I dun wanna burden you...” He said as he hugged her tighter and buried his face into her hair.

She heard him sniff and felt something wet fall on her neck. Quickly she realised he must have started crying. Usually he was quite adept at sugarcoating his feelings, but she guessed all that alcohol must have temporarily washed away his tough guy exterior enough to reveal a softer, more vulnerable, Emmet-like emotional side that he'd kept hidden beneath. 

In recent months, she'd gotten fairly used to trading snarky banter with Rex. But she realised in this instance, she'd have to have to tread more carefully, and comfort him just like she'd used to whenever Emmet had gotten particularly emotional or upset.

“No,  _ babe, _ you’re not a burden! I care about you. That’s why I do things for you.”

She felt more tears fall on her. Rex sniffed and took in a big breath as he turned his head away from her.

“But- You do so much for me an’...  _ *hic* _ an’ I jus come an’ ruin evry thin. I ruineded ur party night...”

He ruined their party night, their night out to the pub, their routine for well over a month because he’d injured himself doing something stupid. And most importantly he’d ruined both of their lives by not coming right back to her the moment he was free from Undar…

Why hadn’t he done that?

He could have, but he hadn’t. He’d missed so much time with her by doing that...

He was an absolute  _ idiot. _

  
  


He let out a single sob and clung to Lucy tighter, his fingers curling around the baggy fabric of her dress.

She frowned when she heard that, slowing down her pace considerably as she thought about how she could console him. 

“You didn’t ruin it Rex. I still had fun! And well, that worm dance you did was pretty funny! And I guess the chandelier thing too. I was just- I was worried for you. I didn’t want to see you get hurt.”

_ “I can’t let you get hurt and lose you again.” _ She thought to herself.

  
  


He thought about that.

He was always getting himself into trouble and getting hurt. He'd been too drunk to consider the fact that his dumb actions tonight could have resulted in him getting seriously injured. Just like he hadn't when he'd started fighting at the arena. Even when he was sober it seemed he was too reckless to think about how him getting hurt would upset Lucy. She'd already lost him once. And he wasn't exactly putting her at ease by continually being so dumb.

And yet despite that, she still cared about him. She still risked opening her heart to him, despite how much he knew it'd hurt her if something happened to him.

She really was the most amazing, unbelievable person he'd even known.

He didn't feel like he deserved someone as special as her caring about him so much.

  
  


“You’rree too gud for me Lucy…”

That stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Rex, that’s not true.” 

He was silent for a moment, before he spoke up again in a deathly quiet whisper. 

_ "It is…" _

She was unbelievably saddened by that. Surely he didn't mean that? Surely that was just the drink and his sad mood getting the better of him?

Maybe it was that. But maybe it was how he really felt. A feeling he would never let show under normal circumstances.

But either way, she couldn't let him feel that way at all.

So she thought hard for a long moment, Rex's quiet sobs being the only thing they could hear, before she found the perfect thing to say.

  
  


“Rex, you are the most important, most talented, most interesting, and the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known. You’re  _ my special. _ ”

That silenced him immediately. 

He vividly remembered her saying that, all those years ago on the very first day they'd met. He'd never forgotten it. She'd even said it to him a few times during the apocalypse. Every time she'd called him  _ 'her special' _ back then, his heart had practically exploded with overwhelming love.

And even now, it still did.

“I…" 

  
  


He paused, thinking about his words carefully. About what he desperately wanted to say. 

  
  


She still cared for him. Despite how much he'd changed, how different their dynamic and the world around them was now, and how dumb and reckless he could be, she still cared for him deeply.

  
  


She was so amazing, so unbelievably  _ special _ to him... 

  
  


And she felt the same way about him.

  
  


He squeezed her even tighter as he nuzzled into her neck.

  
  


_ "I luv you so much Lucy...” _ He whispered softly.

  
  


She turned her head to look at him, making him pull away and stare back at her. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes as he waited with bated breath for her reaction.

Lucy smiled at him, with a look that was warmer and brighter than Rex ever thought possible. It made her look unbelievably beautiful.

“I love you too Rex.” She replied sincerely.

Those few tears in Rex's eyes silently fell. But they weren't tears of sadness anymore. Instead, they were blissful tears of pure joy. A tiny smile grew on his face, and slowly but surely it grew wider and wider. He chuckled once. Then again. Before he was chuckling softly with a wide smile as happy tears flowed down his face.

He leaned in close, closing his eyes as he pressed his forehead against hers. He let out one last chuckle, before he sniffed back his tears and quietly whispered to her.

_ "Can I stay inn yur arms for-eva?" _

Lucy beamed at him warmly, utterly touched by his sweetness, and nuzzled against his head.

"Sure babe… Forever and ever…"

  
  


After several long moments they pulled away from each other, gazing at one another lovingly. 

  
  


Rex then lowered his head and put it back down on her shoulder, all the while not taking his eyes off her for a single second. Lucy was just too good to be true, and yet somehow she was. 

And he loved every single moment he had with her. Just as much as he loved her.

  
  


Lucy rested her cheek on his head as she looked onward. The portal home was right in front of them now and as Rex gazed up at Lucy, she was bathed in a bright glow of pastel rainbow colours.

Rex had thought that Lucy couldn't possibly have looked more beautiful, but staring at her now, he realised he'd been wrong.

In this light, she was _ absolutely  _ ** _breathtaking._ **

Rex's heart fluttered faster, his bright red cheeks flushed even more, as Lucy finally stepped through the portal and the bright light engulfed them as they disappeared home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rex finally said the thing!!!! OUTLOUD!!! :'D He's getting there guys :'3
> 
> And this chapter was inspired by these two pictures by Piece-of-Resistance!!
> 
> https://piece-of-resistance.tumblr.com/post/185171653655/i-got-a-request-what-if-lucy-dyed-rexs-hair-and  
https://piece-of-resistance.tumblr.com/post/186225963930/thanks-for-answering-my-other-ask-i-really 
> 
> I just loved Rex and Lucy's party outfits, and the idea of them going to a Systarian Party was really interesting! And as you probably saw, it had the opportunity for so many different feels!!! ;)
> 
> Also yay! Mayhem finally showed up!! :D I really do like her as a character (in fact I think I like *all* the Lego Movie characters a hell of a lot x3) but I realised that Rex...? Yeah, he wouldn't have any reason to like her 3: But! This isn't the last we'll see of her so... we'll see how their next meeting goes later on ;)


	20. The Hangover

Rex was completely unconscious and passed out on his bed, unaware of everything around him and how blissfully content he currently was compared to what was about to come…

There was a soft thud that landed on his quilt. 

Then another. 

And another. 

The room was quiet for a moment, but then there was a single chirping peep that rang out through the silence. 

Rex didn’t stir.

Another moment passed, then there was another peep, this one was a little louder.

But again, Rex showed absolutely no signs of waking any time soon.

There were a few displeased gurgles and annoyed growls. Three small but noticeable weights clambered over Rex’s quilt and sat on top of him. Two of them roared feebly, whilst a third nuzzled into his neck.

Rex had the slightest hint of a frown on his face for a brief moment, but it quickly faded back to a neutral expression as sleep fully overtook him once more.

The three baby raptors sat on Rex snarled in irritation. Their papa was still asleep! Even after them nicely trying to wake him up! 

That was really weird for him. Usually he was up really early, often even before they were, but today he was still asleep even though it had been very bright for a long time. They had to wait for their mama to come let them out of their pen and give them some breakfast. They had told her very loudly how annoyed they were with having their breakfast so late, and they had even given her a few scolding nips to emphasize their point. They loved their mama and papa, but they also loved having their food on time too!

But now they’d had their breakfast and had enjoyed some playtime running around outside with their mama, they wanted to spend some time with their papa too! But he was still asleep…

So they had to think of a better way to get him up…

Nightquake and Evanescence moved to either side of Rex’s head and sniffed at his cheek and ear respectively, whilst Geminizzle sat against Rex’s neck and started pulling on his long messy hair. Nightquake snorted in disgust. Their papa smelled kinda of funny. He didn’t recognise the smell, but he immediately knew he didn’t like it. Evanescence then started chewing on Rex’s ear gently. Partly because she liked chewing things, but also partly because she thought it might help their papa wake up. 

But he didn’t. He barely moved and wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to them at all! And they couldn’t have that. 

They chirped at each other quietly. Geminizzle moved to sit next to Nightquake, and all three of them waited a moment. 

Then, with as much power as their little lungs would allow, they all screeched in unison, right next to Rex’s ears. 

  
  


His eyes shot open immediately as he jolted up with a start and a yell of surprise.

All things that instantly made him hunch forward and hold his head tightly, as an ache of pain split through his skull. The three raptors screeched and sang happily at seeing their papa awake, and they all rushed to crawl over him and get his attention.

Unfortunately Rex was currently occupied with the rather dreadful ordeal of suddenly being awake. 

Groaning, he rubbed his temples as he kept his eyes shut tight and tried to ignore both his growing nausea and incessant, unbelievably loud noises coming from the three small babies. Every single shriek and chirp of theirs cut through him like a hot knife through melted butter. He was very confused as to why that was, but right now that didn’t matter. What did matter though, was getting them to stop all that unbearable noise. 

He hesitantly cracked his eye open a tiny bit and thankfully found that his darkened room didn’t bother him to look at, as long as he didn’t look anywhere near his partly open door and all the light that was spilling through it that was. He glanced down at the three babies staring up at him from their spot sat in his lap. They had quietened a little once they saw Rex had noticed them, but it wasn’t enough for his liking. Quickly, he scooped them up in both his arms and fell back on his bed so he could lie on his side and curl up again. The babies chirped and wriggled for a moment as Rex laid there with his eyes closed and hugged them tight. But then they soon settled down in his comforting warmth and fell silent, snuggling against him silently and happily. 

Rex sighed in relief. The silence helped relieve his headache a little, but even so he still felt like someone was tightly squeezing his skull as his brain yelled at everything to stop. He also felt really,  _ really  _ thirsty and he wished he could just instantly chug a gallon of water in one go. But that would have involved moving. And moving was something he  _ really  _ didn’t want to do right now. He wished he could curl up tighter and go back to sleep again, but that annoying headache he had prevented even a notion of that happening.

So after a few minutes of snuggling baby raptors, he let go of them and uncurled himself to lay flat on his back and stare up at the ceiling.

He felt like utter  _ crap. _

And he couldn’t really remember why…

  
  


He tried to remember the night before. He and Lucy had gone to the party. They’d met Unikitty, he’d danced with Lucy, he’d met Benny and…  _ her. _ Oh yeah, how had he’d forgotten that  _ she  _ was there? Urgh, he was not in the mood to think about that again, so he skipped to the next thing he could remember. Which was…

Which… was… 

_ What? _

Weirdly he couldn’t quite recall. Everything got super fuzzy after that. He ate some food and drank some punch, but after that…

His brain was still too fuzzy and achy to remember right now. Maybe he’d try to think about that later when he felt better…

  
  


So after a couple more minutes of vegging out, he decided it was finally time for him to get up. 

He slowly moved his duvet off of himself, letting the raptor babies toddle out of the way, before they went to curl up in the convenient nest-like softness that the duvet now resembled. 

Carefully he stood up and started ambling over to his bedroom door. In the soft light that peeked through his doorway, he finally saw what he was wearing. It seemed he was still in his outfit from the party last night, well, his outfit minus his boots and weirdly enough his shirt. He didn’t know why he’d take his shirt off without taking off his party trousers or putting some pj’s on. But that was another blank he’d have to try and fill in later. Right now he still just wanted to feel a little less crappy. So he grabbed a fresh pair of pants, trousers, socks and a white tank top before heading out to the bathroom. 

The bright light made him cringe and groan again as he sluggishly walked the short distance across the hallway. Once he was finally in the bathroom he immediately locked the door, threw his clean clothes in a pile on the floor and stripped his dirty ones off before getting in the shower.

He was in there for a long while, just staring down at the floor trying to ignore his headache as the water flowed over him.

  
  


Eventually though, he was done. He walked out of the bathroom, triple checking he was fully clothed, (as he didn't want a repeat of what happened a while ago in his current groggy state) and stopped immediately.

Waiting for him right outside the bathroom were the three raptors, who once again instantly started screeching happily at him. Whilst Rex felt marginally better after getting cleaned up, he still wasn't in the mood for all their loud noises, no matter how adorable they would be under normal circumstances. So he decided to do what he'd done earlier to quiet them.

He picked up Geminizzle and placed her on his shoulder, before scooping up the other two in his arms. They chirped and squeaked at him which, while not perfect, was more acceptable than the screeching from before. He walked to the kitchen with them, surprised to see Lucy sat in the breakfast nook texting on her phone.

She took notice of him and grinned at him warmly.

“Afternoon Rex!" She cheerfully called to him, in an unfortunately loud tone that made Rex cringe away slightly.

“Ah! Loud, Luce…!" He grumbled as he rubbed his face with his hand.

She smiled apologetically as she slipped her phone back into her pocket.

“Oh… Sorry Rex…"

He started walking over to her slowly as he rubbed his temple with one hand and held the two babies tightly with the other, but then he paused as he took in what Lucy said.

“Wait, afternoon?”

“Yup! 2:30 ish... To be precise.”

He glanced behind him at the kitchen clock and saw she was indeed right. With a groan, he flopped down into the booth, letting the two babies sit in his lap, as he rested his elbows on the table and shoved his hands into his face.

_ “Urgh…” _ He muffled from behind his hands.

Lucy grimaced at him in pity.

“That hangover’s pretty bad huh?"

He peeked at her through his fingers, before running his right hand through his hair and letting his left hand fall to the table.

“A hangover? Urgh. Duh! Of course that's what this is…” He muttered.

  
  


That worried her slightly.

She knew the night before he'd likely end up with a hangover from hell, but she thought he would have known he had one as soon as he was up. The fact that he didn't made her worry that maybe he didn't remember the night before…

But she could ask him about that later. Right now, she wanted to help him recover a bit. So whilst he was idly petting the raptors and blankly staring off into the distance, she got up and started rummaging around the kitchen.

There were a couple times she accidentally let a cupboard door close with a (seemingly) loud bang, which made Rex shut his eyes tight and try to focus on petting the raptors to try to take his mind off of things. He really hated having a headache...

  
  


After another minute, Lucy walked up to the table again.

“Here.”

He heard Lucy put something down in front of him. As he opened his eyes, he expected to see a dinosaur mug of his, but instead he was met with a plain old clear pint of water. He frowned at it, very confused, which was certainly becoming a recurring theme for him today.

“...This isn't coffee.”

Lucy scoffed in amusement and shook her head.

“You can have coffee later. Right now you need to hydrate yourself. Trust me,  _ I know, _ and you'll feel better after a few glasses of these. And some breakfast! You hungry?”

Rex turned his attention away from the glass cupped in his hands to look over at Lucy, who had already pulled out a clean plate from the cupboard. He still felt a little nauseous, but he supposed that could just be the dehydration. He hadn't eaten for a number of hours after all. Maybe a kick of energy from some food would help him feel less crappy.

“Not really… but I should probably try to have some anyway.”

Lucy grinned at him, before turning to mess about with the cooker.

“I made myself a fry up earlier, but I saved you some under the grill. Let me just reheat it for you.”

She started arranging some things on a grill pan as Rex looked at Geminizzle sat on his shoulder. She let out that single signature chirp of hers and he rubbed a thumb over her head, smiling at her.

Rex then heard Lucy turn a knob on the cooker, which came to life with a  _ whoosh _ of flames, before he heard her speak up again.

“Also I put your phone on charge over there by the way. I think you have a message."

Rex glanced over to where she was pointing and saw his phone plugged into a socket on the countertop. He leaned over the back of the booth and unplugged it as he picked it up, before he sat forward again. He hunched over as he unlocked it and the two babies in his lap jumped up on the table to get a better look and sniff at what he'd picked up.

Rex opened the message he had and eyed it curiously. 

"Huh. Batman sent me a video."

He tapped on it. It froze on a scene of a crowd full of people as the video started to buffer.

"It looks like it's from the party."

He waited a moment, until finally it loaded. He turned up the volume.

Then he hit play.

_ "Wheeeee!!! Hey guys! Look wat I can dooooo!" _

Rex tensed immediately.

"Oh by  _ The Man Upstairs, _ no…" He whispered.

On the video he saw himself in his party outfit, giggling and laughing in his higher pitched voice as he sat and swung on a big, ornate chandelier.

Rex turned to face Lucy with a look of horror on his face, whilst she was desperately trying (and failing) to hold back a smirk.

"I  _ didn't _ ."

She walked over and stood beside him as the two of them watched the video.

"You  _ did _ ." She affirmed, no longer holding back her grin.

Rex started blushing as he saw his incredibly drunk ass messing about on the chandelier. Forget anything that had ever happened to him before,  _ this _ had to be the most embarrassing thing he'd ever done. But unlike his previous most embarrassing moment, he couldn't actually remember doing this one. Which he wasn't sure if he was thankful for or worried by.

“...I have  _ zero  _ memory of doing this…”

Lucy's amused smile fell.

“You don’t?” She asked.

Rex muted the volume on the video as it continued. He tried his best to think back to last night, to what exactly had led up to and what he'd done after this whole chandelier thing that had apparently happened, but he was drawing nothing but a fuzzy blank.

“...Nope.”

Lucy frowned at him. A thought suddenly occurred to her, that if he didn't remember this, then he might not remember anything else he did afterwards...

"Do you… remember anything you did last night…? Or  _ said…? _ Anything at all?"

Rex put his phone down and looked up at her. Again, he tried to think. A few more vague bits and pieces came to him, but it wasn't anything concrete.

"...Don't really remember much after going to the food table… I think I was… running from something at one point? But I’m not really sure... Why? I didn't say anything embarrassing did I?"

"Well you said…" Lucy started, but immediately cut herself off.

What he'd said last night had meant a lot for her to finally hear him say again. But… he didn't remember it…

Obviously some part of him must have felt that way about her, otherwise he wouldn't have said it at all, but he had been absolutely hammered when he'd said it. He'd not been entirely thinking  _ anything _ through. Meaning it might not have been something he was ready to openly admit whilst sober yet. 

So she  _ could _ tell him what he'd said, but he was already so embarrassed finding out about just one part of what he'd done, and she didn't want to make him feel even worse...

Instead she smiled, which looked a tiny bit forced, and told him something that was a lot less of a bombshell.

"You said  _ 'my body is worming! I didn't know I could do this!' _ At one point…"

Rex's face scrunched up in surprise as he gawked at her.

"I said  _ that? _ Specifically?"

"Yeah?" She said, glancing away confused. Rex frowned down at the table. 

"Huh…Spooky…"

“Wait, why’s that spooky?”

Rex glanced back at her and shrugged it away with a chuckle.

“Oh, just something the other Emmet said…”

  
  


Lucy decided not to question it any further and went back over to the cooker to take the food out and start plating it up for Rex.

Meanwhile he turned his attention back to his phone, which was currently paused on a frame of him with a particularly dumb look on his face as he whooped and waved an arm in the air.

He hissed through his teeth.

“Yeesh… I made a real ass of myself didn't I?” 

Lucy chuckled as she put a couple slices of bacon on the plate.

“Yeah you really did. “

Scoffing, Rex rested his chin in his hand. 

“Nice of you to sugarcoat it Luce.”

She walked back over to the table, smiling widely as she put the plate of freshly reheated food and some cutlery down in front of him.

“No problem babe.” She said with a cheeky grin and a reassuring squeeze to his shoulder. 

Rex beamed back at her before she sat down in front of him and he turned his attention to his breakfast. He started by cutting up a piece of bacon, all the while keeping a close eye on the two very interested raptors sat on the table staring at him. But despite their cuteness, he would not budge. This was  _ his  _ breakfast and now that he’d smelt it, he realised how hungry he actually was and how much he was not willing to share that much of it. He knew if he gave one of them one little bit, then the rest would want more and more until he ended up with nothing and they’d eaten everything. 

So Rex was not about to let that happen.

Once the babies realised Rex wasn’t about to share his nice smelling food, they decided they might as well do something more interesting. Which just so happened to be play-fighting with each other on the table.

Rex kept a hand protectively placed between them and his food, as they’d no doubt roll into it at some point if he didn’t. 

Then he noticed he’d left his phone on, which was still paused on a picture of him, but that reminded him of another blank he’d drawn earlier.

  
  


"Hey, what happened to my shirt anyway?" He asked as be switched his phone off.

"Oh uh, you threw up on it a bit, so I had to take it off. It's in the wash. You kinda passed out pretty soon after, so I put you on your bed."

He frowned at that, and whilst he was distracted, he didn’t notice Geminizzle climb down off his shoulder and onto the floor.

"You carried me to my bedroom?"

Lucy shrugged casually. 

"Yeah, but I actually ended up carrying you home too. So it was no biggie."

Now that did come as a surprise to him. Not the fact that Lucy was able to carry him, no, he already knew she was strong enough to do that. But it was the fact that she’d done it all the way home and that he’d needed her to do it at all which was odd. 

He guessed, given that and how he’d apparently acted, that he probably hadn’t been very stable on his feet. At least, not enough for him to walk well on his own. But that just added to his growing list of embarrassing actions that he couldn’t recall. 

Who knew what else he’d done that Lucy hadn’t mentioned...

  
  


"Look, Luce… I don't remember everything I did last night… But if I said or did anything embarrassing or super dumb when I was drunk, well… I'm sorry… I hope I didn't ruin your party night."

She was touched by his apology. But as she thought about how things had ended yesterday, she realised he didn’t really need to say sorry. 

"Actually… I was kind of happy with how the night went…"

Rex put his fork down part way through lifting it up to his mouth to gawk at her incredulously. 

_ "Seriously? _ I got shit-faced, made an ass of myself in front of a bunch of Systarians, and threw up and you were happy with all that???"

She had to admit, those weren’t the parts she was particularly happy about, but the one thing she really was, out-weighed everything else. 

"Well, you did do some pretty funny things in retrospect. But mostly, it was because you were actually pretty sweet when you were drunk…"

_ "...Sweet? _ In what way?" He worriedly asked.

After thinking about it for a brief moment, she came to a conclusion.

"In one word?  _ Cuddly." _

Rex’s eyes went wide and he was absoluetely mortified, but that dumb look just made Lucy chuckle. 

"Don't worry about it Rex. You'll always be the world's most badass dumbass in my eyes…"

Rex looked away from her and down at his plate with a slight blush, stabbing a sausage whole and holding it up as he rested his elbow on the table.

"Heh… Thanks Luce…"

He was leaning forward and just about to take a bite out of it, when suddenly a blur of light and dark blue darted towards it before he could. 

Just as quick as it came, the blue blur was gone in a flash. Along with about a third of his sausage too. Rex looked over the table at the booth seat across from him to see the little thief in question munching on it contently. Rex leant back with a sigh and took a bite out of the rest of it himself as he stared down at the rest of his breakfast, hoping it too wouldn’t suffer the same fate. But he was quickly distracted from that as he heard Lucy call out in disgust.

“Eww! Rex! That’s disgusting! Evany just took a bite out of that!”

He glanced at his fork, then back at Lucy with a shrug.

“Yeah I know. But after a few years of this kind of thing, you really stop caring.”

She glanced between Evanescence and Rex, waiting for him to do something, but he was apparently content to let the tiny raptor get away with her thievery. 

“Aren’t you gonna tell her off?”

Rex thought about it, but then he shook his head and sighed as a brief pang of pain shot through his head again.

“Maybe if I wasn’t hungover. But it probably wouldn’t work anyway. Babies just don’t wanna listen.”

Lucy looked down at the little raptor beside her, who in turn looked up at her with the biggest eyes and most innocent expression. 

"I know what you mean. I tried to keep them entertained so you could sleep, but at one point I guess they just snuck off. And before that they all bit me when I was trying to feed them! Honestly- they're adorable- but the three of them can be a real handful! I don't know how you could deal with any more than that!"

Rex chuckled softly.

"Well I had adult raptors to help keep all the babies in line too, but it's just practice and experience really. You'll get used to it too." He said, waving his fork at her for emphasis.

Lucy glanced at it and his half eaten (by raptors) sausage on it in absolute disgust.

"Not entirely I hope…"

Rex barked out a laugh, before he shoved the last remaining bit of the sausage in his mouth (much to Lucy’s continued horror) and chewed it as he talked.

"Eh! You'll be fine! They'll grow out of these bad toddler habits soon enough. Then they might actually start listening when you tell 'em no."

At that moment their attention was drawn away as they heard a commotion coming from near the fridge. Rex and Lucy looked over simultaneously to see that Geminizzle had somehow opened the fridge and knocked a tub of cream all over herself. She seemed to look down at the mess that dripped off her and onto the floor, before turning towards the pair. She stared at them blankly for a long moment, but then suddenly, she stuck her tongue out with a chirp and blepped at them. 

_ "Awww…" _ They both cooed in unison. 

Maybe they should have scolded her for making a mess, but they found it was just not possible to say no to that adorable face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never actually had a hangover myself, but I tried to research it as best I could, whilst maybe taking a bit of liberties with the memory thing. 
> 
> And the raptors trying to steal Rex's food was inspired by this -> https://quillsrandomstuffyblog.tumblr.com/post/186942810697/this-100-happened-in-his-early-days-of-training  
Yeah they'd totally act like the dogs from Up!!! xD


	21. The Most Beautiful Thing In The Universe

Ever since Rex had been stuck at home recovering, the once thing he wanted to do was take a trip out into space. So the other day, he’d gone out in the hot-rod spaceship he and the others had built. 

They recently decided that it needed a name, so together Rex and the others had come up with several different ideas, before they finally settled on one: The Cloud Cuckoo Avenger. Often referred to (mostly by Benny and Rex) as Ceecee for short.

He hadn't had a destination in mind. He'd just ambled around the cosmos for a few hours, doing some tricks for fun in a nearby asteroid field, before heading out elsewhere just  _ boldly going _ and exploring. He had mostly just investigated any small thing or interesting anomaly that had caught his eye, but then he'd picked up something particularly intriguing on his sensors. He'd had a look at it, and instantly decided that he had to show it to Lucy.

Which is why today (a few days after he'd gone out on his trip) he and Lucy were currently sat in The Cloud Cuckoo Avenger's cockpit flying out towards what Rex had found. If Rex had had his way, they would have gone out the day after, but unfortunately there'd been no one available to babysit the raptors. But luckily Metalbeard had managed to make some time, and so he'd decided to look after them with the space squad at The Space Center. Rex thought that had been perfectly fine. The space squad had helped him get the raptors after all, so it was only fair that they should get some baby time too. Although not before a thoroughly long lecture by Rex on how to properly care for them, and when to feed them,  _ what  _ to feed them, and when they liked to have their naps and-

Well. That was all Metalbeard and the space squad had heard, because after Rex had spent so long just telling them about all that, Lucy had suddenly dragged him away to the ship before he ended up wasting the whole day just talking about raptors instead of doing what they'd intended to do.

  
  


Lucy glanced over at Rex in the pilot's seat as he flicked a couple switches over his head before adjusting their trajectory slightly. She had to admit it was rather impressive. He didn't need to think or worry over anything, he just _did it._ Here has was, flying a spaceship with ease to who knows where. With her… The two of them together in the vast emptiness of space… _Totally_ _alone…_

She wondered just what he might have planned...

  
  


Eventually they got close to where Rex was taking them, and he told Lucy to put on a blindfold he'd brought so he could reveal his surprise to her at just the right moment. She chuckled as she tied it around the back of her head. It was all so silly, but Rex seemed really excited about everything. It reminded her of that time he'd first revealed their yellow house to her. He'd been so enthusiastic about it and loved being the perfect showman as he'd guided her around. At the time she hadn't really appreciated it as much as she should have, because she knew sooner or later the invaders would have ruined it, but things were different now. This time there was nothing stopping her from fully investing in and enjoying whatever he had in store. So she sat happily in her seat and waited for them to arrive. 

Rex glanced over at Lucy and smiled warmly before turning his attention back to flying. He hoped she'd like what he had to show her. He thought it had been pretty neat, so hopefully Lucy would too. And if nothing else, it was nice to just have a fun day out with her flying through space.

  
  


After about 10 more minutes of flying, they'd finally reached their destination.

  
  


Rex brought the ship to a stop and anchored it to stay in one place. He powered down the engines and dimmed the interior lights significantly, meaning besides the few strips on the floor and a few of the active consoles, the only source of light came from space outside through the cockpit's large glass dome.

He then stood and moved over to Lucy, grabbing her hands so he could coax her out of her seat and guide her forward. She giggled with growing anticipation as she heard Rex slowly stepping backwards on the metal floor as he pulled her onward. Once they were close to the window Rex started lowering himself and Lucy down so they could sit facing each other on a slightly raised section of the floor. Slowly he moved his hands around the back of her head, before he started gently untying her blindfold. She kept her eyes closed as he pulled it away, grinning widely with growing excitement.

Rex laid the blindfold on the floor and took one last look at Lucy's smiling face, before he turned to face out the window.

"Ok, here it is…"

Lucy slowly opened her eyes and peered out the window. What she saw made her gasp in an instant.

  
  


Right there in front of them was a nebula. A nebula made of bright blues and vivid fuschia gases that flowed and wisped around each other. Bright white stars poked holes through the vibrant colours and made speckled dots scatter over everything like cosmic glitter. And all of it was set against a pitch black emptiness that just seemed to make the colours come alive and pop out even more. 

Lucy stared in awe at it all, and that she was so close to something like this. She could practically touch it. A celestial body almost at her fingertips.

It wasn't something she or probably anyone did every day. She hadn't really spent enough time in space to really come across something like this either. She wasn't as enthusiastic about it as Benny, or the space squad, or even Rex seemed to be, but even she knew when she was looking at something rather special.

Rex stared at it too, fully taking a moment to sit back and appreciate seeing it again. A beaming smile rested on his face.

"I just came across it the other day, and when I saw it I thought of y-"

He paused. Lucy threw a glance his way, but he quickly cleared his throat and moved on, looking back at the nebula and drawing her attention to it again.

"Well… I thought it looked cool… And that it'd be nice to show you. I thought it was pretty and all that stuff…"

She chuckled slightly hearing that, and continued to study it.

She could certainly see some resemblance with the colours. But it was the fact that Rex had seen it too and immediately decided he had to show it to her that really warmed her heart. He took her all the way out here just to show her- not the massive space enthusiast Benny, nor Unikitty and her love of things with pretty colours, nor any or all of their friends, no- it was just her. He'd only wanted to take  _ her. _

She was the only one he'd wanted to share his breath-taking discovery with.

Thinking about that made her smile grow even wider. 

“It really is beautiful Rex.” She said warmly, making Rex turn all his attention back to her.

  
  


He stared at her intently, gazing at her in just as much awe as she was looking at the nebula with. He took in every single minute detail about her. The way her long strands of hair fell down the sides of her face in just the right way to frame everything on it. Those perfectly placed clusters of freckles on her cheeks. Her dazzling eyes that sparked with intensity. The way the dark room and the bright blue and pink light made such dramatic contrasting shadows fall on her, and almost make her glow and radiate with vibrant beauty. And they way that light shone on her lipstick, showing off all those curves and making him wonder how soft they'd be…

And what it would be like to... 

...

He pushed that idea back a little, focusing once again on every other part of her.

And he decided then and there, but also as he had so many years ago, that there was nothing more perfect than her.

And the next softly spoken words he said flowed out his open heart and right into hers.

“Yeah… The most beautiful thing I've ever seen in the entire universe…”

She took a quick glance at him to see at what part of the nebula had particularly caught his eye, but snapped her gaze back within a second when she saw he wasn't looking at it at all. No… He was looking at _ her. _ And not just simply staring, but gazing at her with such warmth, and awe, and bliss, and genuine  _ love _ that it made her heart soar.

Rex saw her gasp silently when she noticed him, before she smiled at him utterly touched with more happiness and beaming joy than he'd ever thought could grace her face.

  
  


He'd seen her look at him that way before, ages ago, back  _ then. _ And here she was, looking at him just like that again, but with even more love than before. The two of them were together, staring at one another, perfectly alone and oh so close...

...

Maybe this was it?

This was his chance. 

_ This _ was the moment he needed to be brave and make a move.

  
  


And so he did.

  
  


Slowly Rex lifted his left hand up and brushed a lone loose strand of hair out of her face, before moving his hand downward, his fingertips leaving a feather of a touch on her skin, until it finally came to a stop and rested against her cheek.

She didn't shy away, or lose her smile or anything. In fact she leant into his hand, simultaneously raising her left to grasp around his free hand and hold it tight.

They both paused there for a brief moment, staring at each other with loving, half lidded eyes.

But then…

They leaned forward, getting closer...

And  _ closer… _

  
  


_ And  _ ** _closer…_ **

  
  


And then…

  
  


Their lips met.

  
  


_ And they kissed. _

  
  
  


Since coming back, Rex had held Lucy’s hand so many times, he’d had hugs, she’d tenderly held his face too many times to count, and she’d even given him a quick peck on the cheek that one time. 

But this?

This was a  _ real kiss. _

He hadn’t had one of those in so,  _ so  _ long…

And he had no idea how much he’d missed it.

It was such a simple thing, just his lips against hers, tasting that wondrous familiar taste, feeling her warmth  _ so close _ to him, but it all completely blew his mind.

  
  


Slowly they leaned back from each other and Rex's hand fell from Lucy's face. As they realised what they'd just done, they both froze, looking rather surprised as their rational minds cleared through that previous lovestruck fog. But then, in succinct unison, their smiles grew again. 

Both of their cheeks flushed as Rex had a wobbly, dopey grin on his face, and Lucy had a sweet, tender one.

But then something changed. The look on Lucy's face morphed into a wicked grin, and before Rex knew it, she'd flung herself forward and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders. His hands had shot up in surprise and his eyes had gone wide, but he quickly relaxed as he realised she was once again kissing him tenderly.

One of her hands caressed down his back, as the other wandered upwards to run through his messy hair. His own arms moved around her back and held her tight. She fit so perfectly in his embrace, and she found he fit just as perfectly in hers. 

Their kiss deepened.

One of Rex's hands gasped at the baggy fabric of Lucy's hoodie as the other moved upwards so he could gently pull her even closer to him, before he ran his fingers through her soft, silky hair. 

The hand Lucy had in Rex's hair fell downwards as she scootched forward and leaned in closer against him. She let it fall to his chest and clutch at his vest and shirt tightly.

And so there they were.

Just the two of them, alone together in the depths of space, content in nothing but their deep embrace.

  
  


After a while, the two of them parted, panting to catch their breath again, their differing tastes lingering in one another's minds. 

They looked up. And their eyes met.

Rex chuckled softly.

"Guess this means we're a bit more than best friends now, huh?"

Lucy raised an eyebrow and scoffed, as she moved her hands behind his neck to rest her arms on his shoulders. 

_ "You think?" _

Rex paused briefly. But then he started laughing and snorting with utter mirth.

  
  


And to Lucy, that was the most beautiful  _ sound _ in the universe. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took...
> 
> Over 80,000 WORDS (107,000 IF YOU COUNT REBUILD TOO) OF SLOW BURN, BUT WE'RE FINALLY HERE GUYS!!! THE SLOW BURN IS OVER AND THE FLUFF BEGINS!!!!!!! HUZZAH!!!! :'D (I'm a masochist for writing that much... ;-;)
> 
> Those incredible pictures were done once again by Piece-Of-Resistance!!!! And I love them so much!!! D'x> THANK YOU!!!
> 
> Life things are quite busy for me now, and I haven't finished all the chapters yet, so I'm afraid from now on, updates are gonna be once a week. But I thought I'd wait to cut down the number of uploads until this chapter was out c: Cause now the dorks are together, I didn't think that'd be so bad. 
> 
> So see you all next week, on Thursday at 3pm (BST) for the next chapter :3


	22. Touchy-Feely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now enter what I like to call "the super mega fluff" section of the story! x3

Rex and Lucy were sat side by side on the double decker couch. Lucy was pressed into and leaning up against Rex's side, and he had an arm draped over her shoulder, hugging her tight. She turned to gaze up at him, and rested her head on his chest with a warm smile on her face.

"So… What does  _ my boyfriend _ want to do today?" She cheekily asked. Rex looked down at her with a smile that exactly mirrored her own.

"He doesn't mind. He's happy with whatever  _ his girlfriend _ wants to do…" He grinned.

They two of them chuckled in unison. Then, Lucy slowly removed Rex's arm from around her, before sitting upright. Rex cocked his head at her curiously as he watched her move, her expression changing to an impish smirk.

"Well then I think... we should just have a nice lazy day at home. And I think I'll do it sitting  _ riiiiggggghhhhht…" _

Lucy pushed herself up from her seat and scootched over sideways, happily placing herself right on Rex's lap. He had a rather surprised look on his face for a brief moment, but that quickly changed back to a warm smile as he realised what she was doing, and let her get settled and made herself comfy.

_ "Here." _ She finished, as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned in closer to him. 

Giving her a wide grin, Rex rested one hand across her lap as he put his other around her back to hold onto her waist.

"Seems like you've got quite the comfy spot there Luce." He noted, glancing down and then back up to meet her eyes again.

"Yep! Best seat in the house…" She tenderly said, leaning in close so she could rest her forehead against his. Rex nuzzled against her and was about to reply, but suddenly his and Lucy's attention was drawn downwards at the sound of a chirp and a squeak.

All three of the raptors had jumped up on the sofa and were currently clambering over Rex’s and Lucy's laps, all the while eyeing the two of them with happy curiosity. The raptors had never seen them sit quite this close, or quite like this before. It was different, but they quickly decided it was a good different, because the two of them seemed really happy. Which in turn made them really happy. 

They all sniffed curiously at them, before promptly settling down and cuddling together in Lucy's lap.

"And it looks like I'm not the only one." She noted.

Rex chuckled and moved his left hand to start petting one of the babies, who gave a happy chirp in response. But after a minute or so, Lucy took a hold of his hand and moved it away. She lifted it up to her face and inspected it for a moment, making Rex raise an eyebrow at her curiously. She then brought her other hand over and started fiddling with his fingerless glove.

She threw a mischievous glance his way, noting his intrigued expression, before turning her attention back to removing his glove. She pulled at it slowly, until finally it was off. 

She tossed it away from her and elsewhere onto the sofa. Then she took his hand in both of hers, rubbing a thumb over it as she inspected it intently.

Rex wasn't quite sure what she was up to, but the close, attentive and gentle contact made his heart flutter as he blushed. He did his best to hide it, but he  _ was _ rather distracted, so it didn't really work. How was it that any contact like this from her still made him melt so easily after all this time? 

Lucy easily saw through what little tough guy exterior he currently had and as she turned his hand over to look at his palm. 

“Has anyone ever told you you have really nice hands?”

Rex blinked. Then he looked at his hand in surprise. He certainly hadn't expected her to say  _ that. _

“Literally never. ‘Cause they’re not.” He scoffed. Lucy frowned at him.

"Well I think they are."

Rex let out a snort and shook his head.

"Why?  _ 'Because they're mine' _ or something cheesy like that?" He teased with a toothy grin.

"Well yeah,  _ that, _ and because they're interesting. And I think they perfectly sum you up." She said, twining her fingers between his as she smirked at him.

"Oh yeah? And how's that?"

Smiling, she stared down at his hand and turned it from side to side as she inspected it again.

"Well you got your tough and hard bits…" She crooned, untwining their fingers and rubbing his rough, calloused knuckles with her thumbs. The tough skin there had no doubt been built up from years of punching various things. But then she moved to caress the underside of his fingers, running all the way from his palm to their tips which again felt a bit harder too, but those bits came from years of building and hauling around bricks. Partly from his time as a construction worker, and partly from master building during the apocalypse.

"But then you got these scars…" She continued, looking now at the pale, discoloured and bumpy marks on his fingers. The many tiny, white dots grouped together in U shaped clusters and overlapped each other to quite obviously make up small bite marks.

"Which yeah, might make you look more badass at a glance, but  _ I know _ what probably made these."

Lucy glanced down and Rex followed her gaze to the baby raptors starting to doze off in her lap. And with the evidence right there, there was no denying that other super cute raptor babies -just a bit bigger than the ones they had- must have been the cause of Rex's scars. 

Lucy faced him again as he did the same, and she held his hand tightly in her own.

"So I think these scars are absolutely adorable!"

Rex laughed softly at that.

"Never thought anyone could ever call a scar  _ 'adorable'." _

"Me neither. But you somehow found a way." She tenderly said as she gazed into his eyes for a moment, before glancing back at his hand again and holding it up between them.

She looked at his scars again, thinking about a younger, inexperienced, raptor trainer Rex dealing with babies for the first time and not having a clue what to do. Though she could imagine he learnt pretty quickly not to handle them unprotected once their teeth came in. But she doubted he would have kept that up all the time. After all, she knew him too well, and so she knew he'd never be able to totally resist their cuteness or a chance to pet their surprisingly soft baby scales... Despite what damage their tiny teeth could inflict.

"So yeah, your hands may look tough and hard, but  _ I know _ how they're actually really sweet and gentle…" She crooned as she lifted his hand up to her lips and kissed it. Her eyes looked up and locked with his as she slowly pulled away and let his hand go, leaving a faint print of her lipstick on his skin.

"Like I said, they sum you up quite nicely." She finished with a warm yet slightly cheeky smile.

Rex paused and just stared at her for a moment, thinking about what she'd said and the lingering feeling of her touch on his hand, which of course made a blush blossom across his cheeks.

"I suppose they do…" He agreed, tilting his head down and away slightly with a small smile.

A few long strands of his hair fell over his face when he did that, which got in the way of his eyes and covered some of his face. Lucy reached up and gently pushed the strands out the way so she could neatly tuck them behind his ear. Rex watched every move of her hand intently, before looking at her face and gazing at her lovingly. She had such a focused look, and moved so deliberately and with such care that absolutely amazed him. Then she slowly lowered her hand, bringing it down near his shoulder, but paused when she noticed another lock of his hair that was almost level with the top of his R on his vest.

“Has your hair gotten longer?” She asked. 

Rex turned his attention from her and her mesmerising face to look down at the bit of hair she was studying.

“Oh. Yeah. I guess? I haven’t exactly cut it since I got back. So I suppose it is longer. Unikitty will be happy about that. She’ll probably want to braid it again, or mess around with it or something.” He wondered with a shrug.   
  


“Forget Unikitty! This is  _ mine  _ to mess around with…” Lucy retorted as she took his strand of hair and started twirling it around in her fingers. Rex chuckled at her.

“Oh is it now?”

“Yuh-huh.” She nodded, carefully pulling even more of his hair from behind him so she could fiddle with even more of it.

“Well then, I suppose that makes this mine?” He playfully crooned.

Rex then ran his fingers through Lucy's long, vibrant blue and pink hair, before he reached the end of it and started twirling and fiddling with it too.

“I suppose it does…” 

Lucy then let go of his strand so she could instead start running her fingers through more of his hair, combing through it gently and feeling its soft, floofy texture. She'd never really been able to do anything like this with someone else's hair before. Emmet had always kept his cut short and neatly styled. And whilst she had enjoyed messing with it whenever she and him had cuddled, she had to admit it was definitely more fun to have Rex's much longer locks to fiddle with. There was just so much more she could do.

She could see why he'd always loved messing with hers, and apparently still did. 

Rex was a bit rusty at this kind of intimate thing. It had been a very,  _ very _ long time ( <strike> far,  _ far _ </strike> <strike> too long</strike>) since he'd last done this with her. He'd almost forgotten how pleasurable and comforting it could be to just be so close to someone, to hold them tight, to savour their attentive touch. But experiencing it again, having that now, was the most wonderful feeling he'd felt in a long while… Well, after that kiss the other day anyway.

But at least Rex had enough experience to know to be extra slow and careful when running his fingers through Lucy's silky soft hair. She on the other hand was perhaps a little too quick and rough with her movements at times, so she kept hitting a few knots every now and then, which made Rex wince slightly each time she did. 

It didn't  _ really _ hurt, it was slightly annoying of course, but he didn't mind that much. It was worth it to have this moment with Lucy and have her give him this kind of affection. 

But all the same, it reminded him of how in recent months he'd had to spend longer and longer brushing his hair each morning, and how he'd grumble whenever he hit a snag and deal with that annoying brief pang of pain until he'd brushed the knot out. Things had certainly been a lot simpler and a lot quicker back when his hair had been really short. He could practically make it all go from messy bed head to neatly styled in a single brush! Which certainly wasn't the case any more...

Rex lowered his hands and rested them over each other as held them and his arms around Lucy's waist.

“You know… My hair is quite a bit longer than I’ve ever had it before… Do you think I should cut it?” He asked, almost nervously.

Lucy stopped immediately and frowned, moving her hands down to rest on his shoulders.

“No. Not unless you really want to?”

Rex thought about it for a moment. Sure it'd been easier when it was shorter, but it did look kind of cool longer. Plus he didn't want it to go back to an Emmet-like length again. Sure, he didn't mind so much anymore when he looked in the mirror and was reminded of his old self, but doing something like going back to his old hairstyle would be a step too far. Plus just thinking about what that would look like on him now really weirded him out for some reason. 

Of course there was his more Dangervest length that he could put it back to instead but… he wasn't sure if that suited him anymore either. Plus Lucy  _ did _ seem to really like his hair as long as it was now. So really, he was at a loss as what to do with it.

“I don’t really mind either way.” He eventually said. Lucy beamed at him and rested a hand against his chest, right over his heart.

“Then don’t. Don’t trim it. Don’t change it. It’s perfect.  _ You’re perfect, _ just as you are.”

Rex froze. 

Then, Lucy felt his heart beat faster under her hand as his eyes glistened, and an utterly touched smile grew on his face.

“You… You really think so?” He said softly, barely above a whisper. 

“I do.” She tenderly reassured him.

Then she leaned forward and kissed him right on his lips, lingering there for a moment, before pulling away again slowly.

“I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

Rex stared at her in awe.

Hearing her say that meant  _ the world to him. _ He'd changed who he was to be tougher, partly because he thought he needed to and partly because it had been what everyone else, but mostly  _ Lucy _ had wanted. Since then he had realised he didn't need to be. He could be tough, but he could also be sweet too, and there was nothing at all wrong with that. He'd started to accept that and change himself so he could have both those aspects, which, looking back on the months he'd spent back in Syspocalypstar, he really  _ had done. _ He was quite different from that super macho jerk that had been dumped into the middle of the desert. He really  _ had _ come quite a long way in such a short time.

Look at him now. Sat on a double decker couch in his little yellow house with three adorable raptors and the most beautiful, amazing woman in the universe sat on his lap and cuddling with him happily. 

And Lucy loved him just as he was,  _ however _ he was...

Could she  _ be _ any more perfect?

She moved again, with such grace and precision as she pushed the rest of his hair behind his shoulders and out of the way. And Rex decided she was already perfect in every single possible way.

"Though if I were you, I might start putting it up in a ponytail or something. For your own sanity's sake. Long hair can be annoying and get in the way at the best of times if you always have it down." 

"You know, I just might do that." He chuckled, as he pulled Lucy even closer to him.

She leant against him and rested her head and a hand against his chest, closing her eyes as she smiled contently. Rex rubbed his right hand against her bare bicep as his ungloved left fell down to pet the raptor babies sat in her lap. He sighed in utter contented bliss and rested his cheek on top of Lucy's hair. It felt so soft, and being this close, he could even smell the wonderfully fruity strawberry scent of her shampoo too. He got a strange sense of déjà vu thinking that, but shrugged it off quickly. 

  
  


After a couple minutes of just sitting together there like that, he hummed happily and squeezed Lucy a little tighter. She opened her eyes and glanced up at him.

“What are ya thinking about babe?”

Rex sighed again and nuzzled her head.

“Just about how wonderful this is… How wonderful  _ you _ are. How lucky I am to have this again.”

He paused.

_ “I missed this.” _ He whispered. 

Lucy clutched at his vest tighter.

“I did too...”

  
  


He tensed up at that. 

Slowly he lifted his head, staring down at Lucy for a moment before he turned to look away at the floor. 

Lucy felt his shift in demeanour and looked up at him in worry. He was staring away from her with a frown, obviously thinking about something, and she quickly realised it was because of what the both of them had just said. The way Rex was looking… He looked almost…  _ guilty. _

“Hey…” She said softly, catching his attention. 

She lifted her right hand up to his chin so she could gently make him face her. He looked into her eyes, but the guilt on his face didn't fade away.

“We're together  _ now,  _ right? That's all that matters.”

His frown deepened, then his eyes darted around the room, unable to meet her gaze.

“I know but… Lucy I…” 

He stuttered in thought, trying to piece together what exactly he wanted to say, to voice a regret he vaguely remembered thinking about before, that was now brought to the forefront of his mind.

What he now quickly realised was his biggest regret  _ of all. _

“I missed out on so much time with you… I could have had this for at least the last five years of my life. But I didn't.  _ I could have… _ I should have come back to you the moment I was free of Undar. Or I could have used the Rexcelsior to come back to you the moment you came back from The Systar System, so you wouldn't have had to spend  _ your _ past two years missing me. I could have done literally  _ anything else _ instead of  _ ruining _ both of our lives… But I didn't. I was  _ such an idiot Lucy.” _

Rex closed his eyes and sniffed hard, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes and threatening to fall at any second.

Lucy shook her head in dismay as she stared at him.

“Rex,  _ no. _ No you weren't. You were just hurt. I get that! And I don't care about what either of us could have done differently! I care about  _ you! _ I love you… And I'm just happy to have you, and to be with you  _ now. _ We can't change what's happened, and even if you  _ did _ still have a time machine we  _ shouldn't  _ change what's happened. Things may have been tough for us, for you especially, but look how things turned out! You and me are back together again, we're in a peaceful world now, no Octan, no apocalypse, no threat to fight at all. And we have a great house, three adorable little raptors, and all of our friends are by our side and happy too."

He glanced around at their living room, then down at the oblivious sleeping babies still in her lap with a frown on his face. But Lucy's hand suddenly resting against his cheek brought his attention back up to her again.

"I wouldn't want to do anything that could change all that. Everything that's happened has led up to this. Wondering about  _ 'what ifs?' _ and about  _ 'what could have been?' _ won't do any good for either of us. Like- What's that thing I've heard you say?- you  _ 'live in the now'? _ or something?"

Chuckling dryly, he moved his eyes away from her again.

"That was just another dumb catchphrase Lucy… A  _ dumb _ catchphrase from a  _ dumb guy _ trying to ignore his past and all his regrets… It doesn't mean anything…" He whispered sadly.

A couple tears fell from his eyes. 

But Lucy couldn't have that, she didn't want him to feel so sad when things were so happy for them now. Gently she brushed away his tears and smiled at him in reassurance.

"But it  _ can _ babe... Focus on  _ now _ and how it's good. Don't forget about the past, no, keep it in mind and learn from it. But we have  _ the now _ and  _ the future _ to be together and do whatever we want. That's more than good enough for me. Isn't that good enough for you?"

Rex stared at her blankly for a moment, but then he sniffed hard and gave her a wobbly smile.

"It's better than I ever dreamt possible…"

And it really was.

All he'd ever wanted for his whole life was to have a special person to share it with, and to love, and to have them love  _ him. _ And he had that now. Yes he'd had that before, and he'd lost that for a while, but now he it again. He had  _ Lucy again. _

And she was right. That was all that really mattered.

He chuckled, both in happy disbelief and from thinking about all she'd just said.

"Heh… You know, that was some real sweet touchy-feely crap there Luce." 

Shaking her head, she sighed at him.

"Yeah… I guess that was a bit of an impromptu sentimental speech. But I did learn how to do that from the best... the biggest sap there is." 

She beamed at him warmly, and her kind words and beautiful face with those dazzling eyes made him feel like the most special person in the world.

He leant forward, a small but genuine smile resting on his face, and kissed her. 

And Rex loved nothing more than being able to show the most special person in his life just how much he cared for her with sweet gestures like this once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I'd intended this one to be nothing but sickeningly sweet fluff, but then that angst just /had/ to get in there didn't it? xD I'm glad it did, cause it was important for them to talk about, but still, even when I try to be nothing but fluffy, the angst calls to me to write it!
> 
> And thank you RexBrickowski/ BrickowskiBois for giving some great suggestions for this chapter! x3


	23. Beddy-Byes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I just could not think of a name for this one xD Please let me know if you can think of something better!

It was 11pm at night and all was quiet in Rex and Lucy’s house. The baby raptors were fast asleep in a big soft pet bed in the corner of Rex’s room, cuddled both around each other and Rex's Dr Dino plushie, quietly snoozing away. Lucy glanced over at them from her spot sat on the edge of Rex’s- no- on  _ their  _ bed. 

It wasn't just his now. And neither was this room. 

They'd both decided that now they'd been properly back together for well over a week, that they wanted to try sleeping in the same bed again. They'd done it before and gotten used to it years ago of course, but it had been a long while since then. Things were different now. But it was a good kind of different. One that both Lucy and Rex were happy with and getting used to.

They'd also chosen to use Rex's room because it was slightly bigger than Lucy's. They'd yet to move much of Lucy's things in though, other than some bare essentials, but that was something they could do in due time. 

Tonight was all about seeing how it went and if they were ready to carry on with it. As well as just get some sleep of course.

  
  


Lucy turned her gaze away from the raptors at the sound of Rex's yawn.

He sat on the opposite edge of the bed and paused halfway through putting on his pajama shirt to raise a hand to his mouth and stretch. She shook her head at him and smiled.

11pm was a little early for Lucy to go to bed and a little late for Rex, but neither of them minded much. It was the best compromise for them both, and it wasn't set in stone yet as a regular bedtime or anything.

  
  


Rex finished buttoning his shirt and stood up beside the bed. Lucy did the same, and then they both lifted up the duvet and got in. 

They laid back and got comfy, pulling the covers up over them before scooching closer to each other so they were less than a foot apart. Then, Rex moved to lie on his side and prop his arm up with it bent at the elbow as he rested his head in his hand. He gave Lucy a wry grin as he leant in closer to her.

“So… do I get a goodnight kiss?”

She leaned in towards him, frowning in thought as she playfully debated it.

"Hmmmm…"

She paused when they were just a few inches apart, looking at Rex's cheeky smile and half lidded eyes as he stared back at her waiting.

_ "No." _ She teased, as she gave his nose a quick boop before rolling to face away from him.

He spluttered and scrunched up his face in confusion. After a few seconds of trying to keep quiet, Lucy started giggling and turned back to look at him again. He still had a dumb confused look on his face, but then when he realised she was looking at him again, he pouted dramatically.

Chuckling, she shook her head and leant in, actually giving him a kiss this time.

After a moment she pulled away and let her head fall down on the pillow as she lovingly stared at him.

"Goodnight babe."

Rex lowered himself and lay down as well. A blush bloomed across his face as he had a warm, goofy grin grow on it too. 

"G'night Lucy."

She smiled as she closed her eyes and snuggled into the duvet. Rex then turned over, flicked off the lamp on the bedside table, and then rolled back to face towards Lucy in the darkness. 

  
  


Slowly his eyes adjusted enough so he could just see her faint outline amongst the pitch blackness. Despite not really being able to see her, he kept on staring, perfectly remembering how she looked so relaxed and casual in her baggy shirt and ¾ length pajama trousers, as well as the way her long, wavy, vibrant hair fell over her shoulders and down her back. After a while he heard her breathing slow and he figured she’d fallen asleep. He decided that he might as well try and get some rest too. So he closed his eyes and relaxed, reassured by Lucy's close presence, her quiet, even breathing, and by picturing her perfect, beautiful face.

Vaguely he felt himself slowly falling into sleep, but just as he was about to drift off, something caught his attention.

He heard a worried murmur coming from his side, but then there was silence for a minute, so he decided it must have been nothing.

But then again, another noise, this one sounding more confused and concerned. 

He was debating whether or not to open his eyes to see what it was, but then the decision was taken from him as something started rapidly patting on something else and made his eyes shoot open. 

He saw and felt Lucy patting her hand down on the bed next to him with a worried frown on her face. She murmured a bit more, and he thought he might have caught a slurred word that sounded something like  _ 'where' _ mixed in there too. Then, her hand landed on his arm. 

She stopped her patting and quietened immediately.

Slowly he felt her fingers curl around the fabric of his sleeve as she grasped it tight. 

Suddenly, she then tugged on his sleeve, and Rex had to tense his arm so he wouldn't move, as she quickly pulled herself closer to him. He was quite shocked by the whole thing. Especially so when he realised she was still fast asleep. Lucy had somehow moved herself so she was right up against his side, clinging tightly to his arm, all whilst completely unconscious. 

  


Then she moved again, more slowly this time, as she wrapped her arm across his chest and snuggled into him, resting her head on his shoulder and letting out a contented sigh.

In the faint light he could see a wide smile on her face as she settled back down into a deep sleep.

Rex was absolutely stunned. Ages ago when they'd last slept together they'd done a fair bit of cuddling, even in their sleep, but he never remembered Lucy doing anything like what she'd just done before. Not that he was complaining mind you. After all, he was utterly touched by her unconscious act of affection. 

Smiling himself, Rex lifted his arm to rest over Lucy's and hug her back. Instinctively she clung to him a little tighter and Rex found himself beaming even more. He stayed there for a moment, staring down at her, before finally he closed his eyes. 

Utterly content in Lucy's embrace, Rex quickly found himself drift off into a deep, sound sleep. Which he felt was definitely the best way he'd gone to sleep in years.

\-----

  
  


When Rex awoke to faint sunlight peeking through the curtains, his sleep addled brain noticed something was different...

Something warm was very, very close to him. 

It was also something that was far too big to be one of, or even all of, the raptor babies, which was rather odd. So he decided he might as well wake up properly and see what it was.

Slowly he opened his eyes. 

And he was met with bright blue and fuschia colours. Which was the very last thing he was expecting to see. 

He turned his head a little and looked around.

He and Lucy (who was still fast asleep) were clinging to each other tightly. His head rested on her chest right underneath her chin. Both his and her arms were wrapped around the other, and their legs were also tangled together as well. 

A wide dorky smile spread across Rex's face as he took this all in. He closed his eyes again as he nuzzled against Lucy's neck and hummed happily.

There was no doubt at all in his mind; this was the best way he'd woken up in years. In fact, it might have been the best way he'd  _ ever _ woken up. And the fact that he'd probably wake up in a similar way every single day for the foreseeable future made his heart soar with anticipation. Maybe this was only their first morning after sleeping together, but Rex doubted he'd ever get tired of being together with Lucy like this.

Rex stayed like that for what happily felt like forever, feeling his head rise and fall as Lucy breathed in and out. 

He debated going back to sleep, but he just felt too giddy and happy to be able to possibly do that. But he really didn't feel like getting up either, not when he knew doing so would mean untangling himself from Lucy and disturbing her sleep. So he decided he'd just stay there until he got tired of cuddling her. Which of course, he never would, so he guessed he'd just stay there forever.

  
  


But unfortunately, a certain hungry baby raptor had other plans for him…

  
  


Rex felt something pulling on his duvet. Then a moment later, felt that same something walking over it to reach him. Opening his eyes, he saw Geminizzle sat on top of the duvet between him and Lucy, staring at him with her head tilted curiously. After a few seconds she let out a peep at him. Rex froze, hoping that she'd been quiet enough to not disturb Lucy. And sure enough, Lucy showed no signs of stirring.

But when Geminizzle saw that Rex wasn't about to move, she toddled ever closer to him, getting right up in his face. Her saw her slowly open her mouth, before quickly letting out a louder chirping peep at him. Lucy moved and murmured a little at that, so Rex decided he needed to do something quick before Geminizzle woke her up. He knew how much Lucy liked her sleep, so he didn't want to wake her up earlier than necessary if he could help it. 

Carefully he lifted his head from Lucy's chest so he could better look at the persistent little dinosaur.

Geminizzle inched her way closer and slowly started to open her mouth again, ready to make another peep, but Rex quickly started shushing her.

_ "Gemi! Shhh! You'll wake up Lucy!"  _ He hurriedly whispered. 

Geminizzle paused. Then she let out another two peeps in quick succession. Rex quickly moved one of his arms above the covers to try and reach her and figure out how to keep her quiet, but then he stopped immediately when Lucy suddenly moved. She rolled from her side and onto her back with a frown and a murmur, before quickly settling down and falling back into sleep once again.

Now that he was free from Lucy's hold, Rex quickly scooped up Geminizzle into his hands and sat up straight. 

He started petting her, and the attention made her fall silent, bar a very quiet purr. He gave a brief glance at Lucy, before looking back down at the little purple dinosaur in his arms with a sigh.

_ "Guess you want some food huh? Well, might as well get you some breakfast and make a start on mine and Luce's too…" _ He whispered softly.

With great care, Rex gently removed the covers and stood up, before pulling them back up over Lucy again. With Geminizzle in hand, Rex made his way out their room as quietly as he could and headed towards the kitchen, unknowingly with two other raptor babies following him in tow.

  
  


\-----

  
  


Lucy was quite happily fast asleep and completely unconscious.

But then there was a sound pretty close to her that started to bring her out of it.

_ "Gooooood moooorrrrrrnnnnning Lucy…" _ Rex said in a sing-song voice.

A bit more conscious now, but still half asleep, Lucy moaned in annoyance. 

"Time to get up!" Rex said a little louder, as he gently started shaking her shoulder. Lucy frowned, grabbing the duvet with her eyes still closed shut as she turned away from him and rolled onto her side.

_ "Hnnng… Five more minutes…" _ She muffled into the duvet she had shoved against her face, snuggling into its pleasing warmth even more.

Shaking his head, Rex sat down on the bed next to her.

"Nuh, uh! You said we both have to get up by 9am to have a special breakfast together to make our first night sleeping together more special. And it's already 9:13, which means a  _ certain someone _ needs to wake up."

He punctuated those last few words with a few gentle pokes into her shoulder, which just made her shake her head and cuddle into the covers even more. 

" _ Noooo… Too tired… Too early… We'll do it tomorrow…" _

He chuckled, scooching his way closer to her back so he could lean over her slightly.

"If you don't get up soon, then I'm afraid I'll have to use my  _ powers _ of persuasion on you." 

She turned and lifted up her head to glance at him, seeing a cheeky grin on his face, before she turned back and let her head fall on the pillow once more.

_ "Not even your cute face is enough to get me up right now…" _

She heard him chuckle again, before she felt the bed shift and realised her was moving closer to her again. This time she decided to roll on her back and stay there, so she could get a better look at what he was up to.

"Oh really? Well then, I hope you're prepared for…" 

He leaned in close to her face. 

She smiled at him sweetly, readying herself for a kiss, but then Rex grinned devilishly and darted forward towards the side of her face.

"STUBBLE TROUBLE!!!" Shouted with a laugh.

Then, Rex mercilessly rubbed his scratchy stubble cheeks against her smooth face. He didn't let up for a second, not even when she started laughing and tried to shove him away.

"NOOO! NOT THE STUBBLE! YOU CRUEL BASTARD!" She cried out between giggles.

"You asked for it Luce!" 

He continued for a few more moments. The both of them laughed, until Lucy was finally able to catch her breath and stop.

"Ok! Ok! I'm awake! You did it!" She chuckled.

Rex stopped and pulled away, the two of them still giggling and recovering for a minute. But then they quietened, and the cheeky grin on Rex's face turned into a sweet sincere smile. Her leaned over Lucy and moved forward again, gently giving her a long, tender kiss. 

When he moved away, he stayed hovering over her, staring down at her beautiful face in loving wonder. She smiled back up at him and placed a hand on his cheek, which he immediately leant into as he kept his gaze on her.

"Good morning." She tenderly said. 

He paused for a moment. But then he sighed contently and delicately moved a few long strands of her messy bed-headed hair out of her face, so he could get an even better look at the unbelievably special and beautiful person before him. 

Out of all the good things that had happened to him, and that he'd gotten back since coming back to his timeline, Lucy undoubtedly was at the top of the list; having her back and being together with her again was the best thing he could have possibly dreamt for.

"It really is…" He said softly.

  
  


Lucy beamed at him even wider than before, and moved her hand from his face so she could sit herself upright. Rex simultaneously leant back and sat down beside her again, before she moved forward to pull him into a tight hug. He immediately reciprocated, resting his chin on the crook of her neck and closing his eyes in contentment. 

For a long while they stayed that way, but eventually they had to pull away. As they lowered their arms, they let their hands fall down to their laps, so they could intertwine their fingers and rest their hands there.

"So how about some breakfast, Luce? I made pancakes." Rex offered with a grin. Lucy raised an eyebrow at him in surprise.

_ "Really?" _

"Yeah! And they actually came out alright this time."

She shook her head at him with a chuckle.

"And how many ended up on the ceiling?" 

With a shrug, Rex removed one of his hands from Lucy's so he could start gesturing with it. 

"The number of how many that may or may not have gotten stuck on the ceiling, or on the floor, or out the breakfast nook window is not important. What  _ is _ important, is that there are more that are edible and waiting for us to eat them." 

Lucy let out a long, impressed (if not also a bit sarcastic) whistle.

"Out the window? Now that  _ is _ impressive… How did you even do that from where the cooker is?"

Rex shook his head dismissively as he leaned in closer to her.

"Can't say.  _ Chef's secret." _

Lucy laughed happily at that, before moving to stand up and pulling Rex along with her.

"Well come on then… We better go get them before the raptors steal them first."

The two stood at the foot of their bed, each holding one of the others' hands as they started walking out of their room and into the hallway.

"Sounds like a good idea Luce."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Piece-of-Resistance for that super adorable drawing!!!! :D


	24. At Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so, this chapter gave me some writer's block, and it's not so good but, enjoy it anyway! x3

On the highstreet of sunny Syspocalypstar, Rex and Lucy were walking side by side and hand in hand. They ambled along slowly, their hands swaying back and forth in time with their steps as they headed to their destination. They were on their way to meet up with all their friends and hang out around the city for the day, but neither of them were particularly focused on any activities that were in store. There was one thing on both of their minds: the big news that they'd finally agreed on telling to their friends. 

Lucy noticed Rex staring down at the floor with a slight frown on his face as they walked along. So she squeezed his hand a bit tighter to get his attention. 

"You sure you're ready for this babe? We don't have to tell them yet if you're not ready."

Rex looked up at her, a worried look briefly on his face, before he glanced away with a cocky grin and let out that nervous laugh of his. 

"C'mon! These are our friends! They deserve to know! And I'm totally fine with telling them."

His grin lasted on his face for another second, before it quickly fell, and his eyes darted to look at Lucy again. 

"...That is- if you are Luce? You  _ want  _ them to know... right?"

She blinked at him in confusion, before leaning up to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. 

"Of course I do baby. It's gonna be fine…" She reassured with a smile. 

As he now found it always did, the kiss made him feel better. But still, his worries stayed in the back of his mind. Lucy had only ever called baby when she was worried for him, so it meant she knew just how nervous he felt. 

But Rex thought it was silly when he analysed it rationally. 

Why was he at all nervous about this? He and Lucy had been a couple before, so it wasn't like it was something totally new to their friends. Plus they were  _ his friends!  _ They were nice and always supportive of him! They'd probably be thrilled for the two of them! 

So… they probably weren't the part of this that was worrying him. 

Maybe it was because when things were just between him and Lucy, they didn't seem as big a deal, or as real. But telling their friends would be telling not only the world they were together, but confirming it to themselves too. 

They were  _ together, _ and a  _ couple, _ and in-

… 

_ In love…  _

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the real thing that was making him nervous. Those three little words he hadn't quite been able to bring himself to say out loud yet. Because if he did, this wonderful dream he was in would become real. And he'd finally have to accept it as the truth. 

A truth that, if he was honest with himself, he wasn't sure he deserved. 

Lucy was so perfect and amazing and beautiful and the most wonderful,  ** _good_ ** person in the universe. And him? Well… 

He wasn't… 

He wasn't exactly that anymore. 

But even so, Lucy loved him and cared about him and wanted to be with him. And if someone as good as her thought he was worthy of her, then maybe he really was. 

  
  


Rex squeezed her hand tighter, and the two of them started walking along again. 

“Come on Luce. We probably shouldn't keep everyone waiting…”

  
  


\-----

  
  


Sat outside of Coffee Unchained, enjoying the afternoon sun and waiting patiently, were Benny, Metalbeard, Batman, Watevra, Robin and Unikitty. They were all idly chatting amongst themselves quite happily, but they were interpreted by Unikitty as something caught her attention.

"Oh hey!  _ There's _ Rex and Wyldstyle!" 

Everyone stopped talking and looked in the direction she was pointing. 

"It be odd that they be so late. Rex be usually most punctual…" Metalbeard frowned. 

As the pair slowly walked closer and more into view, a look of shock slowly crawled over Unikitty's face. She gasped loudly, her eyes darted from them, to the group, and back again, before a wide smile grew on her face.

"Hey, are they…  _ Holding hands?" _ She excitedly asked.

Watevra leaned over Unikitty's shoulder to get a better look, before she too dramatically gasped in surprise.

"They so are!"

Everyone's attention was on Rex and Lucy the closer they got, gears turning in all of their minds as they wondered the exact same thing.

"Hey… you don't think they're…?" Benny started to question, but he was quickly cut off by Unikitty hurriedly shushing him.

“Shh! They’re coming! They’ll hear you!”

The group tried to look as casual and nonchalant as possible as Rex and Lucy finally made their way up to them. From this short distance, everyone could easily see that they were definitely hand in hand, and with no sign of either letting go anytime soon. 

The pair stopped just in front of them. In unison they glanced at each other, before they smiled and faced their friends again, as Rex slowly lifted his free hand to give them a wave. 

“Hey guys…” He cheerfully said with a slight hint of nervousness in his smile.

Unikitty glanced at the others briefly, before turning her attention back to Rex. 

"...No… _Effing…_ **_Way…_**_"_ She shockingly exclaimed.

"The two of ye be…?"

Lucy looked up at Metalbeard sweetly, before turning to face Rex with a cheeky smile.

"...Together?" She finished off.

Rex grinned at her warmly, before turning his attention to all the others with a slight blush on his cheeks.

"Yeah."

A number of the others gasped in happy surprise, their shocked smiles growing wider and wider. A few started to talk over each other, but they were all interrupted by Batman's shout of:

"FUCKING  ** _FINALLY!!!_ ** _ " _

Which he punctuated by slamming his hands and head down onto the table. Beside him, Watevra shockingly gasped and quickly covered a bemused Robin's ears.

"BATSY! Language!!!" 

Rex and Lucy glanced at each other, then chuckled in perfect sync.

"Well, he's not wrong." Lucy said, before she leant up to give Rex a quick kiss on the cheek. He beamed enthusiastically as he looked back at the others and laughed.

"Bout time, right?"

  
  


Then, they all heard a quiet squealing sound, that quickly rose in both volume and pitch. Everyone immediately looked at the source of it -Unikitty- as she bounced up and down in her seat, biting her lip in an effort to contain her overwhelming excitement.

Finally though, she could hold it in anymore, so she let out an ear-splitting  _ squee _ and leapt out of her seat.

"Oh my gosh!!!"

Unikitty darted towards Rex and Lucy, practically body slamming into them with the force of her hug.

"I'm so happy for you two!!!" She cried. 

They both wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her tight (Rex especially so). After a moment, Unikitty stood back from them. A few small tears glistened in her eyes as she smiled at her two good friends earnestly. She'd always been a hopeless romantic, so to finally see her two friends who had both been through so much find happiness with each other again, really warmed her heart in a particularly special way. 

“Thanks Unikitty.” Rex said softly. 

Her beaming smile stayed on her face for a long moment, but then it was replaced by a look of curiosity as she took note of something behind Rex. 

"Oh hey! That ponytail is new! It's a good look for you Rex!"

He glanced behind at it, and shrugged at her casually. 

"Thanks. Luce suggested it. And well, I think it's not too bad." 

Metalbeard then stood beside him, giving him a friendly firm clasp of his hand on his shoulder. 

“It be a fine new look me hearty.”

He beamed down at a grinning Rex, before he glanced down at the two hands Rex and Lucy had intertwined, then up again, smiling warmly at seeing Lucy's utterly content face. 

"Methinks ye  _ both  _ be looking most happy together." 

Lucy looked utterly touched hearing that, but suddenly, Watevra gasped, grabbing everyone's attention as an idea occurred to her.

"I know what we should do! We should throw a party to celebrate!!!" 

Rex froze, thinking about how the last party he'd been to had ended for him, and glanced at Lucy. 

“I dunno Watevs… I don't think a big party is really necessary for this.”

She scoffed at him. 

“Oh it doesn't have to be big! It could just be all of us! And  _ C'mon _ Padre! It's a special occasion!! Why not celebrate?”

For a long moment, Lucy and Rex shared a look, seemingly debating the idea together without any need for words. Then, they both turned back to Watevra with warm smiles. 

“You know, I think that actually sounds like a wonderful idea, don’t you babe?” Lucy asked with a smirk. 

As Rex glanced from her, to all their beaming, ecstatic friends waiting eagerly to hear his response, he found that everything was just as he wanted it to be, and he grinned brightly.

  
“I think it sounds  _ awesome.”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm afraid this chapter is the last I had in my buffer, meaning from this point on, the chapters will be done whenever they're done 3:   
So I don't have a regular schedule anymore, but if I do post a chapter, I'll try to do it on a Thursday. So either subscribe to the story or check back on Thursdays to see if I've done an update :3 Sorry it's come to this, but the regular thing was good while it lasted! And at least you've still had a huge chunk of story in one go!   
So, see you all next time! Because this next chapter is going to be very important, and one hell of a doozy...


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